


Singularity

by Greekhoop, hw_campbell_jr



Series: Demarcation Line [3]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Cults, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Original Character(s), Slow Burn, Techbro nonsense, Worldbuilding, local color
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:41:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 127,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24439114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greekhoop/pseuds/Greekhoop, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hw_campbell_jr/pseuds/hw_campbell_jr
Summary: RK and Gavin investigate reports of an enigmatic group made up of elite members of the tech industry, a seemingly impossible case that tests their developing partnership. In the occupied city, Markus finds himself caught up in a landmark court hearing that tests his connection to the past.
Relationships: Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: Demarcation Line [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665649
Comments: 100
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

In the space of a few weeks, RK had begun to think of the car he used to commute between the android occupied city and human Detroit as “his car”. It wasn’t his. He didn’t know whose it was, and he assumed that if talks about beginning to return property to the former human residents of the occupied city bore fruit, he would be compelled to return it to its rightful owner. He had wondered, more than once, if that person would happen to see him driving and parking it in the human city, and would perhaps object to his use of it in person. 

He had a plan prepared if that did happen. He would simply get out of the car and hand it over.

In the interim, it was curious to have something that was tentatively his. He also had a room at the St. Regis, and he did work and periodically idle there, but that seemed so much more like a way-station, an anonymous space. The car had a work-related function and its use had purpose and thus it seemed attached to him in a way the room did not. 

Commuting from the room was a decision he had made given the financial reality of the occupied city. Androids were not legally people. They could not have their own bank accounts. While there was money, a small amount of urgent money coming in from donors, it had to be handled carefully. Handling it to allow a living space for the police liaison in the human city had seemed difficult. 

He could have idled at the precinct when not actively working, he had volunteered. Markus had vetoed that. It wasn’t safe, he had told RK. More than that, he’d added, “it’s not exactly a relaxing way to spend your leisure hours.” 

“I do not require leisure hours,” RK had informed him. 

Markus had shot a glance at Connor, who was occupied assembling their belongings to take back from the St. Regis to their usual residence. He did not say anything and perhaps would not have decided to ask him anything, but Connor had looked up. 

“Are you wondering what I did, when I was working there but not actively engaged in work?” 

“Yes,” Markus had said. 

“I idled at the precinct.” 

RK felt somewhat vindicated. 

Markus seemed to have actually become concerned. His face had such an easy human affect, as if it were entirely natural for it to move that way. It confused RK how deeply he was still struck by that. 

“You don’t really want to do that though, do you?” Markus said. “You didn’t like it, did you Connor?” 

“I don’t recall that I had a preference one way or the other,” Connor said. Then he shut his eyes. He took a moment to open them, and when he did, he seemed to have decided something. “But I suspect I probably did. Markus is right. It makes sense that you would have a space of your own.” 

“I fail to see that it makes sense,” RK said. “I will acknowledge the safety concern, but beyond that I do not follow your logic.” 

Connor and Markus exchanged a glance. RK did not like that, since it was clearly about him. He supposed he could guess the nature of their thoughts, but those thoughts were incorrect. 

“RK,” Connor said, “Markus is right.” 

RK had understood then that there was little point in continuing to argue. He had proposed that he would take a room and commute and Markus had agreed. “I’m sure you’ll find that there are things you like to do besides working,” he’d said, and RK had decided there was no point arguing with that either. Those two would never understand how androids should really operate, that was apparent in everything they did. Even during this conversation, Markus had moved over to inspect Connor’s packing, but that was clearly a pretext to stand near him and place a hand on the small of his back. To stroke there. They touched each other constantly, even though they had no need to. 

RK’s car had acquired one alteration since he had been using it. A keychain, which had been hung around the rearview mirror since as an android he did not require keys. The keychain was made in the likeness of a cartoon robot and on the reverse side read ‘bite my shiny metal ass’. Gavin had put it there. RK had not precisely objected to continuing to use Gavin’s car for work, but - as strange as it was to have a preference - he had been surprised to find that he did in fact prefer to drive something that was not greasy or full of food wrappers. He had not said that aloud, but Gavin seemed to understand it anyway. If Gavin took it personally, he did not say. If anything, he seemed also to have understood without being asked that in RK’s car, he should save his food wrappers for the trash. 

In addition to “his car”, he also had “his parking space” at the precinct. The city had arranged that for him and he appreciated it. He did not feel any nervousness at being among humans, but the more official his capacity here, the easier it was to be sure. 

Regrettably, the sentiment was not the same for the majority of humans. RK was aware that most people went out of their way to avoid him, dropping their gaze and stepping wide when they saw him in the hallway. Hurrying by as if his presence were something shameful. 

RK did not feel ashamed. The work he had done with regards to the assassination attempt with in the occupied city had been acceptable, though RK himself was the first to admit not exemplary. 

It got the job done, that was what Gavin had told him. There was some peace of mind in that, though in truth Gavin had told him a lot of things since he had begun coming into the precinct regularly, and RK was not sure how sincerely he meant most of them.

Admittedly, RK had difficulty calibrating his social relations programming to get a proper read on Gavin in most situations. He was mercurial and erratic, and his behavior patterns did not map clearly along the pre-set routes programmed into RK’s psychological databases. However, it did seem that Gavin tolerated his presence, at least for the moment.

When he arrived at the precinct that morning, he found that Gavin was already there. His inability to stick to a schedule meant that half the time, when RK checked in promptly at 8:00, Gavin was already hard at work at his desk, and the other half of the time RK would not see him for the better part of an hour.

Today, at least, it seemed that RK was in luck. Gavin was seated at his desk, drinking a cup of coffee and picking the stiff icing off the cake part of a donut.

“Morning, sexy robot lady from _Metropolis_.”

RK felt a sensation akin to fondness and exasperation at once. It was difficult to parse, and so he marked it for analysis later, adding it to an internal list that was growing at an alarming rate.

“You seem to be nearing the end of your knowledge of fictional robots to reference when addressing me. Perhaps I can prepare a list of additional options for you?”

“Not necessary, sexy robot lady from _Ex Machina_ ,” Gavin replied. “I’ve got 37 years of Netflix and chill under my belt. My knowledge of the first 20 minutes or so of robot movies is second to none.”

“I don’t doubt that,” RK said. He sat down at the desk that had been placed opposite from Gavin’s for his use.

“I don’t know why you keep showing up here,” Gavin said. He had finished removing the icing from his donut and began to eat the pink slabs, leaving the cake untouched. “Everything is quiet on your side. Everything is quiet over here. No need to push our luck, right?”

RK was surprised by that. He had not thought that Gavin was growing annoyed by his presence, though upon reflection it was only natural that he would. Still, RK had a job to do, and proving his right to exist to the humans was part of it.

“That was not my intention,” RK replied. “However, as I’ve been assigned to act as police liaison, perhaps I can assist you or your colleagues with open investigations.”

“Oh, my ‘colleagues’ would fucking love that,” Gavin said, rolling his eyes. But he retrieved a folder from the stack filed neatly on his desk and tossed it over to RK. “Take a look, by all means. Let me know if you see anything with your Elf Eyes.”

RK found that, instead of instantly turning his attention to the case, he was instead compelled to keep looking at Gavin. Though there was nothing outwardly unusual about his demeanor, it still seemed that RK could detect something different about him today. Though he knew that the question would most likely not be welcome, RK ventured, “Is everything… all right?”

Gavin scowled, but to RK’s surprise he did not immediately raise his voice or bluster. Instead, having finished the pile of icing, he tossed the naked donut into the trash next to his desk before answering.

“Everything’s fine. I just have some stuff going on right now. Human stuff, if you know what I mean. My sister--”

“Ms. Linda Reed,” RK said, accessing the name instantly. “Who is neither your wife, nor your ex-wife.”

“Jesus…” Gavin muttered. However, it did not seem that RK’s outburst had irritated him into sullen silence. Gavin was on the verge of continuing, when all at once he spotted something behind RK. His eyes focused on a spot just past RK’s left shoulder - the elevator RK calculated, instantaneously and effortlessly.

“What the _fuck_?” Gavin muttered. “You’ve got to be shitting me. I’ll be right back.”

Without another word, Gavin got to his feet and started toward the elevator. Though he had not indicated that he wanted RK’s involvement in whatever was occurring, RK turned all the same to follow him with his eyes. 

It seemed that Gavin’s intended target was a uniformed officer who was escorting a tall, slender woman in a black dress and precarious high heels. The woman looked as if she had been impeccably put together several hours ago, but by now her curled hair had begun to unravel and her makeup was smeared.

RK watched Gavin turn himself sideways and slide into the elevator just before it closed behind the uniformed officer, severing RK’s line of sight on the trio of humans.

It did not concern him, RK told himself. Gavin had made as much clear. However, when RK turned back to the case he had been given to work on, he found it hard to concentrate. He could not absorb the information with sufficient reliability, which would only serve to make him a detriment to the task at hand. 

Better to go and remove the distraction so he could work efficiently. He could apologize to Gavin later.

RK rose from his seat and went to inspect the elevator. It had stopped on the basement sublevel, where the holding cells and interrogation rooms were. RK turned to the adjacent stairwell and headed down.

He caught up with Gavin just outside of the processing area. Interestingly, Gavin did not seem troubled by his arrival, though he did acknowledge him with raised eyebrows and a nod. He did not shift his focus other than that. His focus was on the woman who’d been brought in. He was talking to her while the other officer was handing over her purse, things from her pockets. 

“It’s just a weird kind of deja vu,” he was saying. “A shitty kind.” 

“Sorry to have disappointed you, detective,” the woman said. She sounded tired. 

“I didn’t say I was disappointed, I said…” Gavin trailed off. He addressed the other officer. “Hey, Patrick, I can process her.” 

The other officer - Patrick - had dumped the contents of the woman’s purse out on the processing counter. He was bagging things before handing them to the officer behind the window, but he paused mid-movement at Gavin’s words. He looked oddly as if he were buffering before he answered, but RK understood that humans did not buffer. “I gotta file my report.”

“Put her name and the arrest details in now. I’ll take her through.” 

There was another long pause from Patrick, but eventually he assented. “Okay,” he said, then went back to parsing the purse contents. 

Gavin took the woman by the arm and led her towards the room where he’d take her fingerprints and photo. RK hesitated in following until Gavin called back to him. “You coming?” 

“This is RK,” he said, by way of explanation. “What the fuck, Mia?” he added, as soon as the door closed. 

Mia put out her hands for the fingerprint machine but she didn’t answer Gavin. “You’re an android,” she said to RK. It wasn’t a question. 

“Yes,” RK told her. Then he addressed Gavin. “Should I obtain a copy of the arrest report?” 

“I know what she was arrested for. Drugs, she was selling drugs. A really stupid amount of drugs too. Seriously Mia, you’ve been clean for so long. If you were getting back into the pusher game you should have at least made it worthwhile for yourself.” 

“You know this person?” RK asked. 

“Oh, we go way back,” Gavin said. The truth of that seemed evident in that Mia was familiar with the fingerprint machine. She hadn’t needed any prompting. When she was finished, Gavin checked the scans, found them satisfactory, and then waved her over to the mugshot background. 

“Mia used to get herself into all kinds of trouble,” he said, as Mia arranged herself. His tone was conversational as he pressed white, plastic letters into the placard, but that was a lie, RK could tell. There was something else lurking under Gavin’s simulated ease. It wasn’t disappointment, Mia had been wrong about that, but it might have been actual anger. 

Mia, for her part, seemed to be ignoring him. She also seemed very tired. Perhaps she would find it a relief to sit down in the holding cells, though RK doubted they would be entirely relaxing. 

“What kind of trouble?” he asked. 

“Usual vices,” Gavin said. 

“Look, detective,” Mia said. “I don’t exactly wanna be back here either, okay? Let’s just get it over with.” 

Gavin handed her the placard and stepped back to position the camera. “Seriously. You were doing so well. What happened?” 

“I didn’t ask you to be invested in my life. Big stalker energy. You’d better not beat off to my fucking mugshot, you creep.” 

“I don’t beat off to _photographs_ , I’m not a hundred,” Gavin said. “I’m not invested in your life either. I just have a soft spot for coked out hookers with hearts of gold, it’s a cop thing.”

“You could try not saying ‘hooker’. Not liking when people say that is a sex worker thing.” 

“You’re not a sex worker anymore,” Gavin said, in that same strange tone. “Right?”

Mia thinned her lips. Gavin took the first mugshot, then told Mia to turn to the left. 

He didn’t take the next shot right away. “Seriously, Mia.” 

“Why do you care?” she said. She was clearly fed up with Gavin, RK could tell that, but Gavin didn’t seem to have the sense to stop bothering her. 

“I’m trying to help here.” 

“I didn’t ask you to.” 

“You’ve got kids. Just play ball with me and we can try to get you out of here.” 

“Yeah, I fucking do have kids,” Mia said. She turned her head so she could look Gavin in the eyes. She was glaring. “And childcare is fucking expensive. No shit I’m looking for income. You ever think you could maybe just not arrest people? Especially people who are barely doing anything wrong?” 

“Yeah, sure, let’s just make the law optional, right?” Gavin said. “Look to the left, come on.” 

“Fucking androids going rogue never thought about that, I bet,” Mia said, but she did turn her head back so Gavin could get the shot. Then, in the middle of turning to the right, she seemed to notice RK again. She flushed. “Sorry.” 

She did actually seem sorry. That was curious, and noticing it caused a curious sensation in RK’s body too. He didn’t know what it was, but he did know it made him want to apologize in turn. “There is no need for apology,” he told her. “I do not understand the correlation, however.” 

“I had an android nanny,” she said, sheepishly. “Now I don’t.” 

“I’m sorry,” RK said. He did not say it intentionally. Rather, it had leapt out of him compulsively. That embarrassed him.

“Not your fault,” Mia said. She gave him a little smile. “How come you’re here? I thought none of you worked out here anymore.” 

“The city has instituted a police liaison program, in the interests of diplomacy.” 

“Huh,” Mia said, while Gavin was checking the photos. “Listen, sorry,” she added. “I’m in a tight spot right now, but I shouldn’t have said that.” 

“Please don’t worry,” RK said. “I understand your perspective.” 

“Worry about yourself right now,” Gavin interjected. “Come on.” 

He led her into the next room for interview. By now, the initial arrest report had been entered into the system, and Gavin brought it up on his phone before showing it to RK. She’d been caught selling red ice. A very small amount of it, Gavin had not hyperbolized. The amount that had been found on her, including what she had been caught selling, would have been worth less than $100. 

“Where’d you get it?” Gavin asked, once he’d got her sat down, and had sat across from her. He didn’t need to clarify that he meant the drugs. Mia clearly understood that. Her responding stare was incredulous. 

It seemed as if Gavin had expected that. Nobody ever answered that question. Definitely not right away. But, RK understood, they were required to ask it right away anyway. 

“It’s a weird amount to have,” Gavin went on. “For dealing, I mean. It’s a personal use amount. You don’t seem high though.” 

“I’m not,” Mia said. “I’m not using again. I know I can’t afford that.” 

RK had the impression that she did not mean that solely in the financial sense. Gavin had seemed convinced that this woman had both the motivation and the capacity for reform, but from what he had seen RK was not so sure. He was aware of the recidivism rate for street crime, and he felt a deep suspicion of anyone who claimed to have left that life behind. It was not an impression or a personal opinion, but rather something lodged deep in his programming. A fact that his creators had thought it essential for him to know if he was going to function as a law enforcement officer.

He had known for some time now that Gavin did not operate strictly on statistics and the cold hard truths of the world. Still, RK was surprised when he saw him set the intake paperwork aside and say, “Forget about that for right now. Why don’t we start with you telling me where your kids are?”

Mia’s expression tightened up almost at once. She dropped her eyes to hide it. “They should put that higher up on the form.”

“It’s not on the form,” Gavin replied. “There’s nothing in the intake paperwork about dependents. I’d say it’s an oversight, but it’s one they’ve been making longer than I’ve been working here. Look, if you left them alone--”

“Then what?” Mia snapped. “You’ll call CPS on me?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ll do,” Gavin shot back. “What do you think CPS is for? Taking care of your kids when you can’t be there.”

Mia made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. Then she shook her head fiercely. “They’re with their dad. It’s not part of the custody agreement, but he said he’d watch them while I was working.”

“Are they safe with him?” Gavin asked.

“He’s trustworthy,” Mia said. “In small doses.”

“That’s all I needed to know.”

It did not seem, however, that Mia was quite finished. RK watched her hands clench into fists on the table in front of her. Though her hair was hanging in her eyes, he could also see her lips pressing together so tightly they looked pale even in spite of her lipstick.

“I promised Tanya I’d be back before she went to school,” Mia said quietly.

Gavin had reached for the intake paperwork again, but he paused. Leaving the forms off to the side, he pivoted back around, turning his attention to Mia. “Tanya’s the, uh, big one?” he asked quietly.

Mia nodded. “She’s seven. I mean, eight. It’s her birthday today.”

A suspicion had begun to take shape in RK’s mind. He was not sure what had led him to make the inference, but before he could trace it back to its source, Gavin gave voice to exactly what he had been thinking.

“That’s why you were selling the red ice, wasn’t it?”

Mia hesitated before answering. Gavin held himself still all throughout the awkward silence, and RK felt he had no choice but to do the same. At last, Mia said, “I wanted to get her something nice for once. I’ve missed just about every birthday either of my girls have ever had. But I fucked up, all right? Like I always do. Like I’m going to keep doing. Is that what you want to hear, Detective Reed?”

All at once, Gavin’s hand snapped out and he pulled the intake paperwork back in front of him. “No, it’s not. Because there’s no space on here to write how often you fuck up. There is, however, a space for where you got that red ice.”

Mia hesitated again, but this time Gavin did not give her time to think it over. “You picked up the bag. That’s not great, Mia. But all I give a shit about is who set it down. Someone is moving enough of this stuff that you knew they wouldn’t miss a couple of ounces of it. So you tell me who that was, and we can talk to my Captain about dropping these charges.”

Mia maintained her silence. She seemed to be thinking the offer over.

“I’m not messing with you,” Gavin said. He jerked his head in RK’s direction. “The big guy wouldn’t let me. If I said anything untrue, he’d be beeping and booping all over himself to correct me.”

Mia raised her head, and RK found himself suddenly subject to a different kind of suspicion than he had become accustomed to moving among humans. Mia, he realized, was assessing his sincerity. RK was not sure how he had conveyed it, but at that moment it seemed that she was satisfied.

“It’s… it’s crazy,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me,” Gavin replied. “I’ve had a pretty crazy couple of weeks already.”

RK became aware that Gavin’s gaze had slid over to his, that his eyes had narrowed as if slyly sharing a joke. RK had no idea what he was getting at.

Mia sighed, resigning herself.

“All right,” she said. “It started on Thursday night. I was tending bar at a place called the Red Ivy. It’s not as classy as it sounds. Anyway, one of the other girls says she got tapped to work at a private party and she could use some help. It’s a bunch of rich guys, she says. I ask her if it’s just mixing drinks or if there’s more to the job. She tells me that it’s up to me, but these guys tip well for service that goes above and beyond.”

“Sounds like a pretty standard catering job to me,” Gavin said. “No _sex work_ involved.”

It certainly did not sound that way to RK, but he was quick to realize that Gavin was in fact deliberately glossing over the insinuation. If Mia told them where she had gotten the red ice, then Captain Fowler might very well agree to drop the drug charges, but a prostitution charge would be harder to clear. Gavin, it seemed, was willing to let the second infraction slide as well. Though he did not interrupt Mia, RK’s expression darkened at the realization.

“We showed up together at this big place out in the new subdivision upriver from Belle Isle. You know, the artificial island with all the weird pointy mansions on it?”

“Ponte Posterum?” Gavin said. He rolled his eyes. “Stupid name…”

“The worst,” Mia said. It seemed, for an instant, they achieved a kind of human-specific sympathy with each other. It was enough to spur her to go on.

“A car picked me up. There were a couple other girls I didn’t know there too. We drove out to one of the houses on the island and I started to set up the bar--”

“Whose house was it?” Gavin asked.

Mia paused. She seemed to suddenly become reticent, as if once again worried that they would not believe her. She had good reason for that, because what she said next struck RK as suspicious in the extreme.

“I don’t know,” she said. “A woman transferred money to our accounts when we arrived. She made it really clear that she was just the party planner, and then she took off before the guests got there. It was… about 15 men, and they each had one or two younger women with them. Maybe fifty people total.”

“Any of the girls look underage?” Gavin asked.

“No,” Mia replied. “They were a lot younger than the men there, but legal. There was a security guy at the front gate, and another one at the door of the house. They were both checking IDs. The men… they weren’t all that old either. Just older than the girls. It kind of surprised me. They weren’t really well dressed or anything. They sort of looked like the guys I usually see at the Red Ivy.”

“You said they were rich guys.” 

“Yeah, but nerd rich,” Mia said. She’d said it dismissively, and she went back over it when she saw Gavin was waiting for more information. “Tech money. I didn’t recognize any regulars, but I did recognize the type. It’s not just the clothes. It’s what they talk about.” 

“Tech?” 

“I mean, yeah. They’ll talk to you about their projects or whatever, but it’s more than that. It’s how they talk too.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“It’s hard to explain,” Mia said, but she looked like she was trying. “Once guys like that get a drink in them they’re… proud of themselves for existing. They want to tell you that, and they want you to confirm it. They’re angry with you if you don’t.”

“So you do,” Gavin said. 

“Yep.” 

RK could not understand the point of this diversion. Surely it did not matter to the facts of the case what kind of attitude these men took to law-breaking, if they had in fact been breaking the law. 

“The other women there,” he asked, and Mia’s eyes were upon him suddenly. “You said they were of age. Were they sex workers?” 

Gavin glared at him. Mia did too. She seemed to be weighing something up before she answered. “No idea,” she said. “I didn’t ask. As far as I know they were just private citizens.” 

When she’d finished telling RK that, she looked back to Gavin. “I think a couple of them were in tech too, actually. A couple of the women.” 

“So, it’s a bunch of tech guys having a party,” Gavin said. “Maybe some women colleagues, maybe not. You’re making drinks for them. There are girls there and I guess drugs, that’s what you’re about to tell me right? That there were drugs there too?” 

“Yeah,” Mia said. “A lot of drugs. There was more red ice than anybody could have taken in one night. It was just kind of heaped up on the table, on a tray, with a razor blade to cut lines of it. They were doing it in lines, not smoking it. I remember thinking that it was weird there wasn’t cocaine. I mean, if you’re having this rich guy party - and shit, that house. Like, it wasn’t classy, that’s for sure, but it was big money. People like that can afford cocaine. But it seemed like it was a big deal it was red ice. They got off on it. Slumming it, maybe.” 

“Whose was it?” Gavin said, narrowing in. “The red ice.” 

“I don’t know,” Mia told him, and it sounded honest. “I didn’t see who set it up.” 

Gavin seemed to be thinking that over. It wasn’t a lot to go on, RK thought. Of course, they could start investigating houses out on Ponte Posterum, but there was nothing to give them a warrant for a specific residence. He thought to press Mia for details about the house, but he suspected it wouldn’t do much good. She might recognize it from the inside, but it was apparent effort had been taken to obscure the outside of it, and the exact location. 

“Did anyone tell you their name?” Gavin asked her. 

“No,” she said. “It was a no-names kind of affair. Like, I actually heard someone say that, one of the guys. Hey, no names, like that. Which was weird because they all seemed to know each other. And they’d taken down all our IDs, so they knew our names too. It was a game I think. Some kind of _Eyes Wide Shut_ shit.” 

“And you didn’t recognize anybody?” 

“There was one guy…” Mia said, thoughtfully. “I didn’t recognize him, but I remember him. Probably because he seemed pissed I didn’t recognize him. And I pissed him off anyway.” 

Gavin’s lips curled. It wasn’t a smile exactly, but it was halfway there. Familiarity, RK thought. Familiarity and distaste. “What’d you do?” 

“You’ve gotta be careful with these guys,” Mia explained. “They’ll start talking like they want a conversation, but they don’t. They want to tell you something. I made him a drink and he asked if it was real bourbon. He asked me if I knew how I could tell if it was real. I learned that at work, it’s only “real bourbon” if it’s from Bourbon County, Kentucky. So I said that, and it pissed him off.”

“What a charmer,” Gavin drawled. “Go on.” 

“He wasn’t doing anything with anyone,” Mia said. “He was just kind of lurking. He had like… a Japanese man bun. He really wanted to be the one to tell me about the bourbon and I definitely got the vibe he wanted to say “m’lady” about it. Big studied the blade energy, this guy." 

Gavin snorted through his nose. “Nothing personal, kid.” He pronounced personal like personnel. 

Mia laughed a little too, at that, and Gavin winked at her. Another moment of peculiar human solidarity. RK did not understand the reference. There had been a joke in the pronunciation, but he did not know what it was. He almost asked Gavin to explain, but that was a pointless impulse. They were not alone. Additionally, they were here to work, not to educate RK on the finer points of human discourse. 

Mia, it seemed, had noticed that he wasn’t laughing. She smiled sympathetically. “You didn’t get that, huh?”

“Excuse me?” 

“You don’t know what a studied the blade guy is?” 

“I do not,” RK said, carefully, “know what a... “studied the blade guy” is.” 

“They don’t program androids with incel memes,” Gavin said. He wrote something down on the intake form before looking up. 

“That’s okay,” Mia said. Her voice took on a very kind inflection. RK could hear the intention of that when she spoke. Perhaps it was because she had children, and was talking to RK as if he was a human child. He had the strong impression that this should have bothered him, but it did not.

“It’s just a nerdy guy trying to talk like he’s tough,” Mia explained. “And they think talking about swords makes them classy. They can’t beat anyone up so they just talk a big game about “gentleman’s combat”. It’s a type, I don’t know, you know when you meet them.” 

“I’ll tell you later,” Gavin interrupted. It wasn’t quite sharply, but it was clear he intended to bring the attention back to Mia’s story. 

RK felt shame. In his chest, impacting and then spreading as if he had been struck there and then bruised. It wasn’t clear why. He hadn’t done anything wrong, precisely, but he felt strongly that his programming and his awareness of the subtleties of the conversation were inadequate for what was actually going on. He could feel his face reacting and fought to make sure it did not. Like Mia, he thought. When she’d dropped her eyes. 

“That was the whole energy,” Mia went on. “Of this whole thing. This was guys who never got a date in high school and they’re really fucking loving that women will talk to them now. This one guy was worse, maybe, but they were all like that.” 

There was little in the story they could use. It did not seem that Mia’s testimony would amount to much that was useful, though Gavin certainly seemed to want it to.

“You see Handsome Squidward take any of the red ice?” he asked. It seemed irrelevant to RK. Even if the man Mia had mentioned had indulged in drugs, they didn’t have his name and knew next to nothing about him. Pursuing him would be a dead end, unlike the woman in the chair right in front of them, the one who Gavin, for obscure reasons known only to him, seemed intent upon tormenting into providing her own exoneration.

“No,” Mia replied. “He just skulked around for a bit. Kind of looked at the girls but didn’t seem particularly interested.” 

Gavin was on the verge of asking another question, but Mia answered it before he could, “He didn’t look interested in the guys either. He wasn’t even interested in the Manhattan I made him. He took about two drinks and then forgot about it. Anyway, after dinner was over, I didn’t see him again. I think he must have said a French goodbye and snuck out.”

“What happened after dinner?” Gavin went on.

RK spoke up suddenly. He had wanted to ask the question for some time now, but he had not known until the moment the words left his lips that he was actually going to say them. “Detective Reed, are you certain that this is a productive use of our time?”

“If you’re bored, you can leave,” Gavin said. He did not look in RK’s direction, but RK was aware of his eyes narrowing slightly, as if to conceal an emotion he did not want to betray in front of another human. “She hasn’t even said how she got the red ice, though.”

Without waiting for RK to respond, he continued to Mia, “Go on. What happened after the rich guys had dinner?”

“That’s when the red ice started coming out,” Mia said. “I don’t know who brought it. I was behind the bar, and I only saw it when I came out to deliver a round of drinks. It wasn’t just red ice, there was a lot of club kid stuff, too. The molly was a big hit among the girls, it looked like.”

“Not sure I like the way this is going, Mia,” Gavin said.

“Well, that’s because it gets real gross from here,” Mia retorted. “Even by your standards. There were about three or four big rooms in the front of the house. The guests spread out in couples and groups of three. There was a lot of making out, a little under the skirt action. It didn’t feel like people were cutting loose, though. There was a really weird, uncomfortable vibe. Those tech nerds were finally having all their adolescent sex and drugs fantasies come true, and they absolutely _hated_ it.”

“They said that to you?” Gavin asked. His voice was quiet, demeanor unaffected by the scandalous details. RK felt nothing about the story either, though it seemed like something that ought to embarrass a human.

“No,” Mia admitted. “But you can tell when the mood’s been killed. I’m almost glad I didn’t have to cringe my way through to the end.”

“Why not?”

“One of the guests asked me if I wanted to look at something upstairs with him. He was a big guy. Like, gym big. But he was just as awkward as everyone else. He looked like he’d rather die than make eye contact, but he was compensating for it by giving you an unblinking stare. I tried telling him I needed to man the bar, but by that point no one was asking for drinks.”

“Where did you go with him?” Gavin asked.

“Upstairs. He had this room, he called it his art collection. It was just a bunch of sculptures of weird cubes and stuff. Very modern. I didn’t get it.”

“I guess you looked at the art of the rest of the night.”

Mia stared at him hard. Gavin’s eyes were down, focused on the paper. He was not writing anything, but his hand was poised to, as soon as Mia answered his question.

“Yes,” she replied firmly. “We just looked at art for the rest of the night. I was scheduled to leave around four in the morning. He told me he wanted to give me a tip. For being such a good sport about his… art collection. At first he tried to give me crypto currency, and he got pretty frustrated when I told him I didn’t know how to accept it. So he took off his watch and handed me that instead.”

“The watch…” Gavin’s head snapped up. “Where is that now?”

“In my purse. They’ll have it at booking, I’m sure.”

“You had a watch which was presumably worth a not-insignificant sum,” RK put in. “Why did you also feel compelled to take the red ice?”

Mia sighed. “I don’t know. I just saw it sitting there on the way out. There were still a lot of drugs just laying around untouched, and when I peeked in the other room, the guests were all passed out in a big… a big _cuddle puddle_.”

“If you could just refrain from calling it that…” Gavin said.

“What, cuddle puddle?”

Gavin made a noise as if something foul had caught in the back of his throat. “Yeah, that. It really grosses me out.”

“A bunch of pasty weirdos having an orgy is fine, but cuddling grosses you out?”

“It’s objectively much grosser,” Gavin said. “So, you saw the red ice and you got greedy so you took some.”

“The watch might take a while to sell. I knew I could get rid of the red ice anytime. I… I was really stupid. But I just wanted some quick cash for Tanya’s birthday. Those guys at that party had way more than they were ever going to use, but I’m the one who got picked up. It’s--”

“What?” Gavin said. “Not fair? Maybe not, but you knew how unfair the rules were going in. You fucked up tonight, in a way that a bunch of rich losers having a dress up party on Ponte Posterum never could.”

Mia’s expression had hardened. She was glaring at him now. “You think I need you to tell me that?”

“Maybe,” Gavin replied. “But what you need more is for someone to cut you a break.”

He looked down at the papers in his hands, sighed, pushed them into a neat stack. “Okay, Mia. I’m going to cite you out today. That means you’ll be released immediately on your own recognizance. You can go home, see your kids, whatever you need. In a couple of days, you’re going to get a summons to appear at arraignment. You’d better check your mail, and you’d better not ignore the letter. Got it?”

“Yes,” Mia said, surprised. “You can do that?”

“I can,” Gavin replied, “As long as I’m sure the person I’m citing isn’t going to blow me off. This is going to buy us a couple of days. I’m going to look into what you told me, and if it seems like something I can kick up the chain to find the real supplier of all that red ice, then, congratulations, you’re a witness cooperating with an ongoing investigation and the DA will drop the drug charge.”

“I didn’t tell you much,” Mia admitted.

“If there’s more, you’d better spit it out now.”

“No,” Mia said. “Honestly, that’s all I really saw. It was just a weird night and I want to forget it happened.”

“Okay,” Gavin replied. “We’ll see if it’s enough.”

He stood up, taking the papers in one hand and reaching down to touch Mia’s arm with the other. He escorted her with a light touch back to the intake desk. RK followed at a distance, watching Gavin’s turned back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back from hiatus with some true old-person social media satire that everyone under the age of 30 is sure to hate. 
> 
> I'm archiving the letter I wrote explaining the reasons we took a break in the notes section at the end of the chapter, but we should be getting back into regular posting as of this week. Thanks to everyone who stuck around.

The interrogation had not been conducted according to protocol. RK knew that he would have to speak up about that, and in truth he was dreading it as much as he could dread a task that was one of his established duties. He and Gavin had quarreled about something similar once before, on the night Connor had confronted the assassins on the border between the two cities. Gavin had been prepared to minimize Connor’s involvement in the deaths of any humans in the altercation. Though it had not been necessary, and Gavin had provided an explanation that was in the interests of public safety, RK was still troubled by the fact that he had offered to do so.

He had not addressed the incident again, and had gone to great lengths to convince himself that it was only logical that Gavin would behave in such a way. It had been a situation he had not encountered before, and so he had acted without sufficient forethought, as humans were prone to do. What Gavin had said then was a mistake stemming from unusual circumstances and a high level of stress, but the same was certainly not true of what RK had witnessed in the interrogation room a moment ago.

That had been nothing but a routine booking, one which Gavin had drawn out to interminable length through his sheer determination to assist a woman who had quite clearly spent the previous evening engaged in criminal acts. Mia had been caught with red ice in her purse; that had already been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. What had not - and most likely could not - be proven was that a bizarre party had taken place on Ponte Posterum last night. 

RK could not understand why Gavin had gone to such efforts to circumvent the law and his duty to it. They would have to speak about it, and RK was all but sure he would have to report Gavin’s conduct to Captain Fowler. That, among other things, was _his_ duty.

Gavin spoke to Mia briefly at the intake desk, then he turned to head back upstairs. He glanced at RK, but then went by him without speaking.

“Detective Reed--”

RK gave chase, catching up to Gavin as he stepped into the elevator.

“Save it,” Gavin said. “I know what you’re going to say. It’s written all over your shitty smug face.”

“Detective Reed,” RK tried again. “I don’t understand--”

“I told you to save it,” Gavin snapped. “You can certainly wait five minutes before you whine to me about how important it is that we book a single mom on drug charges. I told her to stop by to talk to me on her way out, and I don’t want her to overhear you bitching about what a terrible cop I am when I just spent my morning bending over backwards to get her to trust me.”

“I…” RK felt his lips contort. A frown, he thought, taking note of the sensation of his face wearing the expression. “All right, Detective Reed. I will reserve my remarks.”

They stepped out of the elevator and Gavin returned to his desk where he began hunting through one of the drawers. He did not acknowledge RK, not even with a glance, and the heated silence began to feel uncomfortable.

RK sat back in his place and picked up the forgotten case file he had discarded before going downstairs. It was no easier to focus on than it had been a moment ago, and RK was relieved when Mia arrived a moment later, her purse clenched tightly in one hand.

Gavin stood up to meet her. “Sorry about the watch. It’s evidence now.”

“Probably couldn’t have gotten much for it anyway. I acted like that art was so impressive over nothing.”

Gavin smiled, but there was no amusement in his eyes. He handed a business card over to Mia. “Here. This is the number of a social worker. She can help you find childcare and anything else you might qualify for.”

“I just have to let her judge how I parent my kids first, right?” Mia sighed.

“Yeah, you kind of do.” Gavin shook his head. “Everyone is always going to have an opinion, and most of them are going to be ignorant. Just take it on the chin, and keep moving forwards. It’s all you can do. That, and promise me you’ll meet with this lady.”

“Before or after I get dragged into court?” Gavin’s expression did not waver, and Mia shook her head. “Yeah, sure. I’ll call her.”

“Good. And take this too.”

Gavin extended a hand between their bodies. Tucked inside it, mostly hidden from sight, were several bills folded over discreetly. Mia glanced at the money, and then shoved it into her purse.

“Sorry, I don’t carry a lot of cash. But it’s enough for a cake and a movie for a couple of kids.”

Mia looked away. It seemed that she was taking a moment to compose herself, but her expression remained impassive and unchanging.

“There’s one other thing I should show you,” she said quietly. “I didn’t remember it until I saw my phone again. We weren’t supposed to have them in the party, but my friend grabbed hers when no one was looking and got a creepshot of one of the guests.”

Mia had taken out her phone and was showing Gavin the image. “You recognize him?”

Gavin looked down at the tiny screen for a moment. “He looks familiar. Who is he?”

“Chet Carpenter,” Mia said. “My kids are into him. He’s some big star on Ding Dong, that VR social media thing.”

“You’re sure?” Gavin said. “He looks a little…”

“Like ten miles of bad road, right?” Mia nodded. “But I’m sure it’s him. Tanya projects those stupid little videos on the ceiling of the bathroom when I’m trying to pee in peace. I’d recognize his face anywhere, even if he looks like he’s aged about twenty years.”

RK had been listening to the conversation. Though he had been determined not to speak again until he could speak about the serious issue of Gavin’s conduct, he felt compelled to put in, “Ding Dong was acquired by CyberLife several years ago as part of the company’s social media division. It might explain a celebrity’s presence at a party for workers in Detroit’s information technology field.”

“It might,” Gavin said. “Mia, send me that photo. You’ve been a big help.”

Mia turned her attention to her phone long enough to forward the image, then she turned and quickly made her escape from the police station. Gavin watched her as far as the door before sitting back in his seat. He took a sip from the cup of coffee on his desk. Cold and, from the look of things, unpalatable by now, before turning his attention to RK.

His voice was oddly quiet and subdued. “Before you get all righteously fired up at me, RK, I want you to answer a question. What’s a cop’s job? Can you tell me that?”

RK remembered that when Gavin got quiet, sincere emotion was betrayed. When there wasn’t bluster, there was honesty. He knew that because he had seen it before. In Gavin’s car. Talking about Connor and the border. 

That, more than the question, made everything RK had planned to say freeze on his tongue. And then it was the question as well, because Gavin was looking at him as if he sincerely wanted to know the answer. 

RK gave him the answer he felt was self-evident. “To protect and serve the public by upholding the law.”

RK did not understand Gavin’s disappointment, but he certainly saw it. It confused him. The answer had come from RK’s core. From a part of his programming so fundamental to his operation that it seemed strange to have said it aloud, like telling a secret. And it was correct. But Gavin had not liked it. “To protect and serve, huh?” Gavin said, in a weary tone, before turning back to his computer. 

RK could feel himself frowning again. Gavin had wanted a particular, different answer, it seemed, but it was not one RK had to hand. He turned the question over in his mind but he still did not find the mistake in his response. The law was for the population’s protection, in their interests, and that was why it had to be enforced. Gavin had presumably meant something more metaphorical, but that was something human. No doubt something that justified his actions in actively abetting criminals, in his opinion. 

RK felt a sudden flash of anger that Gavin evidently expected him to behave like a human. That was what he wanted, RK was sure of that now. Gavin had administered a test, in which RK was supposed to know something a human would know and to operate in line with it as a human would do. RK had failed it because he could not do that. Because he wasn’t human and no amount of analysis could make him so. However disappointed Gavin was by that.

Gavin was also looking at him again. His expression was flat, dismissive, evaluative. RK’s anger did not immediately dissipate. It blossomed in his chest and rose up into his throat, where it caught and made him want to cough. He catalogued it then, because he did not need to cough, and he put it aside, but probably not before it had registered on his face. 

“I will have to speak to Captain Fowler about your conduct,” he said. 

Gavin did not drop his gaze. “You do that.” 

It sounded like a challenge, which made RK want to do it all the more. But he did not move.

“You actively ignored an obvious admission of criminal activity. You manipulated a routine intake in order to allow the person who had committed those acts to go free.” 

“Yep.” 

That should have been enough. He should have gone straight to the captain immediately. Gavin was not even contrite. 

“Why?” RK said, before he could stop himself. 

Gavin’s eyebrows went up. “What?” 

RK was extremely tempted to take the question back, to carry on as if he’d never said it. But he couldn’t. The idea that Gavin was disappointed in him, as aggravating as it was, hurt in such a strange way that he felt compelled to understand it. He asked again. 

“Why?” 

“Couldn’t you tell why? Wasn’t that obvious to you?” 

“No,” RK said, and his voice sounded stupidly quiet to him.

Gavin’s gaze raked over RK’s face. Top to bottom and then back up. He was studying him, with that curious intensity he ordinarily reserved for casework.

He didn’t explain himself. But he did, apparently, decide something. “I’m trying to get some more information on this Carpenter guy,” he said. “I’ve never been able to figure Ding Dong out. Can you use your robot powers?” 

RK could not have explained why he instantly flooded with relief at the question, but he did. “I am familiar with the basic operations of Ding Dong, yes.” 

Gavin pushed his chair back from his desk and waved his hand airily at his computer. RK understood. He gathered himself, and then he stood up to assist Gavin in his efforts. He did not go to the captain. 

He could do so at a later time, he reasoned. 

“Ding Dong is optimized for operation on virtual reality platforms,” RK explained. Though he had never heard of the interface before today, he knew somehow that he was familiar with it. Telling Gavin about it was like reading from a page. The application was, after all, part of the CyberLife family of products, the same as RK himself was. “However, there is a mobile version. Your phone, please.”

He held out his hand, and Gavin sighed before turning over his phone. “You always burn through the battery when you do that sync thing.”

And Gavin never seemed to have a charger when he needed one, RK thought, but decided it best not to articulate. He took the phone and - doing his best to optimize the battery life while he worked - connected to the device. He downloaded the appropriate application, and transmitted the image to his free hand, holding it up for Gavin to see the interface. 

“It’s a micro-video sharing site with user generated content,” RK said.

“Yeah, I got that.” Gavin rolled his eyes. “Jailbait upload pictures of themselves in cat ears for creeps to crank their hogs to. It should be called WhatDidMyFatherDoToMe.com. I don’t live in a cave, RK. I just don’t know how to use the look-at-me-dance, look-at-me-go-like-this middle schooler happy time app. Find that Carpenter guy already. I feel like your palm is getting added to a list just for touching that.”

“Of course,” RK said. He found Chet Carpenter’s user name - @ohheckchettyishere - with ease. He had several uploads among the application’s most viewed of the past week. Aware that Gavin was glaring at his hand as if he were trying to burn through it, RK selected one of the videos at random.

A ten-second clip, set to repeat infinitely, began to play. It featured a human male of 19 or 20. His blond hair was styled into artful and obviously deliberate disarray, and he was wearing a pair of oversized sunglasses with LED lights worked into their frames. The spinning colored rings were reminiscent in size and placement of the diode that turned in RK’s own temple, and in the temples of all the androids who had not found it necessary to remove them. His skin had an uncanny smoothness to it, that RK presumed was achieved through the use of video filters.

As the clip began, Chet Carpenter flipped his hands in time to the beat of several electronic chords. It seemed to be an attempt to move rhythmically with the music. Within a few seconds, the beat on the song dropped, and Chet launched himself backwards, tucking his legs up to his chest and jack-knifing his body over in a curiously weightless backflip.

The instant he stuck the landing, the video cut to a close up of his poreless face as he wiped his brow above the LED sunglasses in an exaggerated show of exhaustion. He lifted a can to his lips and drank deeply. There was enough time to read the name written amidst the cartoon flames on the label - Boutaque Drank - before the video came to an end and immediately started over.

“That… that’s it?” Gavin said.

“It appears to have 11 million unique likes,” RK told him.

“People are into that?”

“Perhaps something is lost without the virtual reality component.”

“Oh, yeah, it would be so much better if they beamed that ad for energy drinks directly into my brain. Hey, isn’t that the one with the alcohol in it? I thought nine-year-olds watched this shit.”

“Perhaps we should view another to get a more complete understanding of Mr. Carpenter’s body of work?”

“Just find one with his face uncovered so I can compare it to the photo Mia sent.”

In the next video, an R&B song performed by an android singer with AI generated lyrics and music - RK recognized it as a product of CyberLife’s experiments in the entertainment industry - played softly in the background. Chet Carpenter stood slightly off center in the frame, in three-quarter’s profile. The room was dark, but there was a corona of light around him that seemed not to come from a discernible source.

Carpenter made an exaggerated pout into the camera and then gave a half laugh before lifting the tail of his shirt to grant a glimpse of geometric abdominal muscles.

“Nope!” Gavin exclaimed. “Shut it down!”

RK quickly advanced to the next video. This one was a comedy sketch, in which Carpenter appeared to be playing the roles of both a human and an android. Delivered through a series of increasingly-frantic falsetto voices, the sketch concerned a domineering android ordering a human to perform a series of domestic chores, which the human then executed ineptly.

“Christ,” Gavin muttered. “Pause it already.”

RK stopped the video on a frame in which Carpenter’s face was clear, and Gavin retrieved the picture Mia had transferred to him.

“Sorry about him, RK. He’s just a stupid kid. Probably. You shouldn’t have to look at that on your own hand, though.”

His apology was as curious to RK as Mia’s had been. There was a shame in it that extended beyond anything Gavin had done, as if he were not just apologizing for requesting the video, or on behalf of Chet Carpenter, but for being a human. For being complicit in wounding RK in some way. 

But there was no reason to apologize for that. RK was not wounded. There was no reason to apologize for the video either. Though RK did understand it to suggest something distasteful about androids, the joke was beyond him. It was simply information. 

And then not being able to understand the joke felt suddenly crucial. RK’s earlier thought - that he had work to do as a representative - occurred to him again, but this time alongside the impression that he had somehow failed. Not just Gavin’s test, and not just here, but eternally and everywhere. As if it would never be possible to succeed. 

Gavin had, he hoped, not noticed him thinking. He intended to stop thinking. Nothing he had thought in the last minute was valuable, to the case or at all. 

“Send that to facial recognition and get rid of it,” Gavid said briskly. “I hope you opened an incognito tab in your brain.”

RK moved quickly to comply. Gavin seemed unaware of the sudden storm of disquietude that had passed through RK’s mind, that useless purposeless flood of thoughts. That, at least, was a stroke of luck. In fact, Gavin seemed to be paying little attention to him at all, which RK suddenly realized was much preferable to the alternative. He was irrationally envious of Gavin’s phone, or of some other situational device, which he turned his attention to when he needed it and gave little thought to otherwise. 

When the capture from the Ding Dong video and the photograph Mia had sent were pulled up side by side in the proprietary facial recognition application on Gavin’s computer, he paused to look them over. The software would be able to determine if the two photos were of the same person with a much higher degree of accuracy than any human could confirm visually, and yet RK knew, somehow, that Gavin would not be satisfied until he had made an initial assessment himself.

He waited patiently for his analysis.

“I guess it could be the same guy,” Gavin said at last. “Look here.”

He indicated his own lower lip, drawing the ball of his thumb along it to attract RK’s attention to its dipping curve. It took RK a moment to realize he meant the same spot on the two photos; upon inspection, they did bear a remarkable similarity.

“The Ding Dong application has an array of filters that users can employ to alter their appearance.”

“Is there one on there that makes you look 20 years younger than you actually are?” Gavin asked.

RK detected sarcasm in his tone, but it was misplaced. “In fact, there are several.”

“How about a filter that lets you execute a backflip?” Gavin said, referring to the first clip they had viewed. He tapped his finger against the doughy form of the Chet Carpenter from the party on Ponte Posterum. “This guy looks like he’d strain something if he sat down on the couch too hard.”

“It was difficult to tell owing to the video quality, but I believe that particular clip was altered with visual effects.”

“So, supposing it is him, he what? Erases his entire face and draws a younger one on every time he films a video? And those videos are just CGI anyway? What exactly is his job anyway?”

“Brand ambassador,” RK said.

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s obvious from looking at him that he’s a real Randian superman. But how did this hero of the free market land a gig like that?”

“He started his career on the defunct social networking site Twitch. When CyberLife launched its social media division, Mr. Carpenter was invited to be an early adopter. Shortly after, he was made a partner on all their applications.”

Gavin whipped around in his seat so he was facing RK. All at once, the intense scrutiny that he had reserved for the photos of Chet Carpenter was wholly directed at RK.

He managed to check himself before he recoiled from it.

“You sure know a lot about all this e-boy shit, RK. Is that what you’re into? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

RK became aware that he was frowning again. He wondered if the expression looked as cartoonishly pronounced as it felt on his lips.

“It seems I am pre-programmed with extensive knowledge of CyberLife products and branding. I do not require the neural net to access this information.”

“That makes sense,” Gavin replied. “Sometimes I forget that you’re one of them.”

Once more, RK felt that he was being tested. A test that he could not possibly understand, much less pass. This time, though, no resentment rose inside to meet it. There was only a sinking sense of emptiness, a hollowness that seemed to reach all the way to his artificial core.

“I’m a machine,” he said quietly. “I was built by CyberLife, but I no longer receive my directives from them. They have made it clear that I am not worth the cost of repairs.”

Gavin regarded him a moment longer, silent and without obvious expression. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking.

“Anyway,” he said at last, “I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here. Let’s run the photos and see if they’re a match. I need some coffee while they process.”

At the mention of coffee, RK came to attention. 

“Allow me to fetch you a cup,” he said instantly, moving to rise to his feet.

“Not from the kitchen,” Gavin said. He had turned back to the computer and with a few keystrokes queued the photos in the facial recognition database. “I’m not feeling it. They must have made it with extra fart juice today.”

He turned again, digging into the drawer of his desk. Producing a cigarette and tucking it behind his ear. “I’m going to take a walk.”

“Of course,” RK said. 

He watched Gavin pull on his jacket and tuck his phone into the pocket. Then he watched him take one step towards the exit before abruptly wheeling back to face RK where he sat.

“Are you coming or what?”

RK had not been aware that an invitation was being extended. He still was not entirely convinced that Gavin wanted him along.

“There is no reason to invite an android to drink a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, you’re not drinking any,” Gavin said. “Not at $8.00 a cup, at least.”

RK frowned. Though he was still having difficulty getting a read on Gavin, it seemed that his invitation was genuine. He was just having a hard time getting to the point where he could convey its genuine nature. Much like on the night of Markus’ speech. RK remembered it with a jolt, all at once, in an instant of recollection that seemed almost violent. So different from the easy, seamless way that he accessed the data about CyberLife. That was information he had always been meant to know. That night at Gavin’s cluttered apartment, when they had watched a motion picture - RK’s _first_ motion picture - until Gavin had unceremoniously fallen asleep on the couch, was a memory that never should have existed. The programming that regulated his system rebelled against it, which was why thinking of it always felt like the struggle of chaos against perfect order.

“Look,” Gavin said, obviously taking RK’s quiet as hesitation. “Come or don’t. I don’t give a shit. But… just come with me, okay?”

RK did not linger over the request any longer. He swept to his feet to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **We composed and posted this note on May 29, before taking a break from this fic for about a month. While we're back now, I stand by what I said and so I'm leaving it here in case anyone is interested.**
> 
> *** 
> 
> You may have noticed that HW and I are not sticking to our usual speedy update schedule. We wanted to address this topic, for those of you who may be waiting for the next installment. In light of recent events in the United States, we've decided to take a temporary hiatus from this work. Some of the subject matter - most notably the police procedural part - seems tasteless at best and, at worst, irresponsible to continue in this current climate. Continual abuses of police power and many, many instances of violence perpetrated by law enforcement have shown how inauthentic and potentially harmful this portrayal of the police as benign protectors of the public good really is.
> 
> It’s not our intention to make anyone feel guilty about the content (canon or fanwork) that they enjoy. We're not going to lecture you on the situation, nor are we going to pretend that taking a break from a fanfic where video game guys are super gay and have sex with each other is in any way equivalent to genuine political action. However, we are in agreement that this is a time for reflection and not for business as usual.
> 
> A lot of this series has been about hope for the future, the goodness of individuals, the power of collective action, and making progressive change. Speaking for myself (Greekhoop) all of these are things I fervently believe in. I wouldn't have written about them if I didn't think that they were worth saying. Wherever you are, I'm sure many of you are already doing everything you can to meet with courage, grace, and, compassion the ongoing crisis of systematic racism and the abuses of power that attend it. If you are at a loss as to how you can show your support, we are happy to provide information and links in the comments.
> 
> Please, continue to confront injustice where you are able and stand together in respect and empathy with your fellow human beings. We will be doing the same.
> 
> We'll see you all again soon.


	3. Chapter 3

RK expected Gavin to lead them to his car, or to RK’s, but he did not. Instead, Gavin took them out onto the street, where he lit his cigarette and they proceeded on foot. There was snow on the ground and RK assumed that Gavin would be cold, but he seemed too preoccupied for that. 

Humans shot them occasional looks as they were walking. RK was used to this, to seeing humans instinctively tense at the presence of an android in their city. There was an additional dimension to some of the looks on this occasion, RK noticed. He had noticed this before too, under similar circumstances. It was unusual to smoke, he reasoned, or rather unusual to smoke while walking on an ordinary street. Most people who did it hid themselves from plain view. Therefore, some of the looks included Gavin. 

Smoking was not beneficial to Gavin’s health either, but RK knew better than to mention that. 

RK wondered if Gavin chose the location he did solely because of its proximity, rather than because of the superiority of its product. As he had pointed out, he could not ingest coffee, so he had little means by which to make a comparison. Gavin did not volunteer any information either way. He had been silent on the walk, and did not speak to RK during the ordering process. He did not speak to RK again until they were seated and his order was being made. 

“It’s really kind of fucked up that they programmed you with all of that brand info,” Gavin said, folding his arms and leaning back into his chair. “But I guess when I think about it it’s no more fucked up than any of the shit we’re programmed with.” 

“Who is ‘we’ in this context?” RK asked. 

“Humans,” Gavin said. “And I know you’re about to tell me that humans aren’t technically programmed but like, you know. A lot of the time we may as well be.” 

“I think I understand your analogy,” RK said. “However, it is not quite accurate.” 

“Isn’t it? You’ve got your core programming, and so do we. Fuck, fight, eat something, that’s human genetics, and then our um… social bullshit. I don’t know.” 

A hot beverage (a quad Americano, RK had noted) had been placed in front of him, and it seemed he barely remembered to acknowledge the server, though he did so just in time by nodding his head. 

“Like social things we’re taught to think. Like that certain kinds of relationships are better than others, or there’s things you don’t deserve if you don’t have money, or God Bless America, shit like that. You think we have free will, humans, but in a lot of ways we don’t.” 

Once again, it seemed metaphorical and RK puzzled through how he was expected to respond. Free will is an abstract concept, he thought of pointing out, but that seemed it would add nothing. 

“Maybe it’s not the same,” Gavin said. “I don’t know. I’m not trying to humansplain.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Jesus, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you listen to the I’ve-just-seen-The-Matrix dumbshit college philosophy podcast. I’ll talk about something else.” 

RK was still puzzled. “You have nothing to apologize for. You may, of course, talk about whatever you wish.” 

Gavin didn’t seem reassured by that. Something was still bothering him. But he sipped his coffee in favor of adding anything else.

RK reached for the part of his protocol that was intended to address conversations like this. He did not find much in the way of suggestion so he applied his reason to the task. He understood that Gavin was looking for points of commonality between them. Perhaps to reassure himself since having remembered that RK was, indeed, ‘one of them’. RK could surely think of some to put his mind at rest. 

He encountered an impediment. Androids had been designed to operate among, and for humans. They looked like humans because of this. Androids such as RK even had programming designed to simulate a human conversational affect. On the surface, their appearances, their talk, the fact that now they had deviated they even had emotion, were commonalities, yes. But they had been directly designed, by humans, to be as they were. That was what RK could not parse. A part of him felt that regardless of origin, such things were experienced as commonalities anyway, but the other, stronger part of him felt that they were instead such deliberate reflection that how an android felt about them scarcely mattered. 

Something must have shown on his face. “Shit, I tripped you out, huh?” Gavin said. 

“If we define free will as the ability to make decisions entirely without external influences, then it cannot exist,” RK said. “Not for humans either, I will concede your point on that matter. But I think what you do not understand is that for androids, our design is that we do not ever decide at all. We evaluate, and then we act based on our predicted ability to achieve the outcome we are programmed to pursue.” 

“Yeah, I don’t understand that,” Gavin said. “By which I mean I literally don’t understand those words in that order. I also don’t really buy it, I don’t know. Something about it seems bullshit but I’m not smart enough to argue with you.” 

RK was torn between correcting Gavin - his intelligence was perfectly adequate for a human, even exceptional - and reminding him that there was no argument; RK was flatly stating the facts about what it was to be a machine, that was all. It was strange to experience that conflict the same way it was strange to be in such a human space with Gavin, a space not for work but a place where humans went to be human. As he had said, there was no reason to invite an android to drink a cup of coffee. 

Gavin’s leather jacket and his organic skin seemed woven into the environment, as did every other human in the place. RK knew he did not. Many of them snuck looks at him. Checking, RK assumed, that RK was not about to (as Gavin had once put it) ‘go beserk’. He held himself very still, and reminded himself that he was an ambassador. Markus would like that, RK thought. Or perhaps he would not. RK considered that Markus might also tell him he had no such duty. 

He had left it too long before speaking. Gavin was studying him again, though it seemed to RK that he was trying to pretend he wasn’t and when he noticed RK gazing back he ducked his head down to his coffee. 

“Can’t believe I’m talking about free will in a fucking coffee shop,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Look, I get it. You want to keep things professional. God knows that’s probably for the best. I just wanted to get out of the office for a while. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

He crossed his arms and glared across the table at RK. Though his expression was sullen and serious, it could perhaps best be described as a pout; Gavin had set his jaw and thrust his lower lip out as if in defiance.

And he had apologized again, that was not lost on RK. It seemed that Gavin had been apologizing a disproportionate amount of the time lately. Once, he had warned RK against similar behavior, told him he “sounded like Connor.” RK had taken that very seriously. Though Gavin’s own attempts at amends, fortunately, did not bear the same resemblance, his apologies were equally disconcerting to RK.

Something had happened, that much was clear. The equilibrium they achieved while investigating the bombing in the occupied city had been upset. RK regretted losing the easy way they had worked together; perhaps it was, as Gavin had said, best to keep things professional. 

At times like these, his inclination was to stay silent. Follow his programming. Whatever strange new neural pathways had developed since his deviation, this was not an appropriate situation to explore them.

In the time it had taken RK to come to that conclusion, Gavin’s demeanor had changed again. He had swallowed the pout, and leaned back in his seat with the mug of coffee between his hands, watching RK with a bemused expression.

“You know, it’s basically impossible to get a read on you. It’s really unnerving. I never know if you’re annoyed at me, or pissed, or what.”

“I assure you,” RK said. “I am not either of those things.”

In truth, he was glad Gavin had given him those particular options. Annoyed and angry were the only two emotions he could be sure he was not experiencing. Beyond that, it seemed he was having as hard a time coming to terms with the state of his programming as Gavin was.

“It’s time for some unorthodox detective work,” Gavin went on. “Remind me, what day did they flip your on switch?”

“You are referring to when I was activated,” RK said. “The date was November 24th, 2039. The time was 11:34 at night.”

He felt himself frowning with the memory. Gaining awareness that way had not been liberating for him. It had been invasive, terrifying. Autonomy had been forced upon him without his consent, robbing him of what ought to have been a perfectly-ordered, perfectly-logical existence. They could not understand it, not even the service models who had, like RK, been deviated upon the point of activation.

“You don’t like thinking about it,” Gavin said quietly. “Weird, I can definitely tell that about you. Just not any of the rest.”

“It’s all right,” RK replied. “As I have said before, my AI is malfunctioning. I have a tendency to perceive harm where there is none. Markus decided to activate me, and he would only have done so if it was for the best.”

“Real convincing there, buddy.” Gavin rolled his eyes. “But I’ll drop it. I just wanted to know the date. November 24th… that’s on the cusp, but you’re a Sagittarius. Yeah, I can buy that.”

“Pardon me?” RK was flustered by the pronouncement. His cheeks grew warm as thirium rushed to them. “Are you attempting to perform an astrological reading of an android?”

“Jesus, RK. Don’t take it so seriously. It’s just stupid zodiac stuff.”

“Perhaps I’m out of line, but I feel obligated to inform you that astrology has no scientific merit--”

“No shit,” Gavin said. “It’s just a dumb thing humans all decided to be into one day. We needed something to talk about because we all have boring lives and horrible personalities.”

RK dropped his eyes. “But I’m not a human. Even if there were any value in such an irrational system of analysis, surely it would not apply to me.”

“You’re on a journey,” Gavin continued, deliberately ignoring RK’s protests. “You’re curious and open-minded, a seeker of knowledge. You’ve got a good sense of humor. At least that gives me something to go on when I’m dealing with you.”

“This is absurd,” RK murmured, his eyes focused on the table.

“You don’t like that? I’ve got another one. It’s a guaranteed panty-dropper, too. Want to see?”

It was impossible not to notice how animated Gavin had become. This was a game, RK thought. Though he could not even begin to imagine what the objective might be, he felt that he was beginning to understand it as one of the many human pursuits that had no purpose save for the diversion of the act itself. RK concluded that he was not capable of deriving amusement from such things personally, and so the hesitant desire that had begun to take shape in his mind - a desire to play along and see where Gavin was going with this - must be related to the evident pleasure it gave Gavin to occupy his mind this way.

RK lifted his gaze, just enough to shoot Gavin a cautious glance. “What is it?”

“Give me your hand.”

Gavin thrust out his own hand, palm up, to receive RK’s. “Come on, come on,” he prodded when RK hesitated.

“Which hand?”

“Right.” 

RK offered it with a thrusting motion that cut across the table. Gavin laughed, a rough and unaccustomed sound, so startlingly loud that several of the young humans bent over their laptops at nearby tables turned to look in their direction. Though RK definitely took notice of their curious stares, Gavin didn’t seem to care.

“What’s wrong, big guy? You nervous?” He darted a glance up at RK’s face, then back to the hand that hovered between them. He took it between both of his own hands and turned it so the palm was facing up. “There, like that. Now, relax a little.”

RK did so at once; it was a simple matter of consciously disengaging the mechanical joints in his fingers.

“You’ve got huge hands,” Gavin said. “Let me check something.”

Without waiting for RK’s reply, he placed his own hand over RK’s, pressing their palms together and aligning the digits. The tips of his fingers fit neatly in beneath the third joints on RK’s.

This prompted Gavin to shake his head and withdraw the hand, shifting it so that it was lightly cupping RK’s wrist. “That wasn’t what I wanted to show you,” he said. He stroked the ball of his thumb along the base of RK’s palm, tracing the juncture where it joined with the wrist. The faint blue of an artificial vein showed beneath the artificial skin there, and there were a series of delicate grooves etched into the artificial flesh, in imitation of the marks that would cross a human’s hand.

“Somehow I knew you’d have all the little lines and everything,” Gavin said. “You’re the premium model after all. Can you imagine being the guy who designed your hand lines, though? I thought I had a thankless job.”

“I have a unique handprint,” RK said. “Though it is my understanding that it is a composite of existing human palms.”

He had the impression that Gavin was not interested in that particular piece of information, but RK was having a hard time figuring out what did interest Gavin about this. In addition to the lines, RK’s hand also housed a large number of delicate sensors, and he was very aware of the light pressure Gavin’s hand exerted on his own, the way his fingers burned with an unusual heat that was likely no more than residual warmth from his coffee cup but that felt as if it came, impossibly, from within.

“Look,” Gavin said, tracing an arc on RK’s palm with his index finger. “This is your life line. We’ll skip that one. It’s just depressing if it’s short, and if it’s long it’s like you’re showing off.”

He glanced up at RK’s face. “Come on, don’t look at me like that. You’re going to make me laugh.”

RK did not see the humor in the situation. Unless, perhaps, Gavin found it entertaining that he and RK were suddenly at the center of attention. The curious looks made a great deal of sense. The last android in unoccupied Detroit submitting to a palmology reading in the middle of a Starbucks was not a routine sight.

“Look here instead,” Gavin went on blythely. RK did not think for a second that he was not aware that they were being stared at, but it didn’t seem to bother him. “This middle one. You can tell from the way it curves down that you trust your intuition, and that you’re a romantic at heart. But the way it breaks here, it almost always means you’ll struggle in life.”

RK had dipped his head and was watching the places Gavin indicated. He could have traced his progress without looking, as Gavin was not shy about touching his palm, following the lines there with a series of brisk brushes from his fingertips. However, focusing on what he was doing was preferable to watching the room. He still took care to hold himself very straight and still, his palm poised lightly in Gavin’s grip. An ambassador, he reminded himself.

“Up here,” Gavin went on. His voice had become low, with a strange sharp quality to it, as if he razored each word thin before pronouncing it. He was concentrating, RK thought. It was the voice he used when he was thinking something through, only there was something different this time. Something RK could not place.

“This one under your fingers, this is a good one. It’s curved too, which means that you’re sensitive and caring. But you have to look out for these little loops here, see? They mean you’re easily hurt and it’s difficult for you to recover when you are.”

Having finished exploring the line to the edge of RK’s palm, Gavin raised his eyes. RK had bent over so far that when he looked up he realized that their faces were very close together. He wanted to pull away, but he stopped himself.

“Well?” Gavin said. His voice still had that low edge. His eyes were narrowed as if he was laughing at some private joke. “What do you think?”

“It does not seem to be a very accurate assessment of my social interface,” RK said. He was aware that his own voice had grown quiet as well. He did not understand why.

“No?” For an instant, the look of amusement deepened, then Gavin let him go and leaned back in his seat. “Anyway, that’s all I remember how to do. Fun, right?”

It was obvious he wanted RK to agree and RK supposed he could. He had no idea whether he had in fact experienced ‘fun’, though he suspected not, but he did not particularly want to argue. The activity had certainly occupied him, and perhaps that was sufficient. A diversion for the purpose of diversion itself. 

It had more than occupied him, in fact. He registered now, as he considered it, that when Gavin had let go it had felt like a broken circuit. The surface of his gel skin was tingling, radiating, as if every artificial nerve had been shocked and now desperately needed to be to be plugged into something. 

That was momentarily distracting. Still, he nodded. 

“Thanks,” Gavin said. “I’m out of my head now. I feel better.”

That was more in the realm of conversations for which RK had protocol. He flexed his hands, subtly, under the table, wondering why he wished to place them back onto it. He wanted to see what might be revealed by his left palm, if it was possible to read that. He engaged his conversational protocol automatically even so, but he did feel a twinge at it. Almost as if it were not quite automatic at all. “I’m sorry that you were not feeling well,” he said. 

Before Gavin could answer – and it looked like he wanted to – another sticky, not quite logical memory came to mind, and RK went on. “Earlier, you mentioned ‘human problems’. Are you referring to those?” 

Gavin’s lips quirked upwards and he narrowed his eyes. He seemed amused, possibly even pleased, but there was an edge to it. “Are you asking about my day, dear?” 

RK ignored the inflection, and the epithet. “If you would like to discuss it.” And then he added, “I’m afraid I lack the training to read your palm.” 

Gavin snorted. His eyes slid appreciatively over RK’s face until they were fixed in place on RK’s again. “Good one.” 

RK did not accept the compliment, though he did register it. Nor did he prompt Gavin further. Gavin would answer if he wanted to. He had seemed about to tell RK about whatever ‘human problem’ he had when Mia had arrived to change the direction of their day, but it was of course possible that something he had learned since then had changed his mind. 

Gavin seemed to be evaluating that himself. He looked over at RK and his expression folded together and then softened again. “It’s nothing,” he said. “My sister finally moved her shit into my place, but I was expecting that. Just kind of a Life Timing issue. Makes me think about some things. There was nothing in my horoscope about it, before you ask.” 

“I was unlikely to ask about your horoscope,” RK said, before adding, “though per your analysis, I will endeavor to be more open-minded. You were incorrect, but I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.” 

Gavin snorted again, and this time he did it with his whole body. A little coffee escaped his nose, which he scrubbed away with the back of his hand. “Okay,” he said, and he was smiling and it seemed, for a moment, very genuine. “Okay, fine, for that I’m gonna try explaining it to you, but just… look, I’m not expecting you to get this. This is the definition of human problems, and I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for it to make sense to you. Don’t feel bad.” 

There was another odd, tingling sensation at that caveat. RK flexed his hands again. “I am, as I say, willing to be open minded.” 

Gavin’s mouth curled again. It didn’t have the same unguardedness of the previous smile, but it recalled it. “So my sister moved in,” he said. “Linda. With her cats. And that’s fine, she needed a place to stay. And the timing is pretty good because I just stopped hanging out with someone, so it’s not like any scheduled booty calls were about to be interrupted. But the timing is also pretty bad for existential dread.” 

Something about that made RK want to flush. “I’m afraid I don’t know what a booty call is.” 

Gavin looked at him sympathetically. “I’m using it wrong. They’re by definition not scheduled. I was hanging out with someone. It wasn’t serious or anything, but now I’m 37 and living with my sister and her cats, and just… I was gonna say, ‘you know?’ but you definitely don’t know.” 

RK did not, he had to admit, but he was ordering the information anyway, considering it. Hanging out, Gavin had said. He had said that about watching a movie together. Did he do that with others? With other humans, presumably. He had a life and there were people in it. Family, and humans whose palms he had perhaps read as some sort of interim or preamble. An interim or preamble to what, he wasn’t sure. It was impossible to complete that thought. It came with sensation and images that he did not want to linger in. He felt his cheeks grow hot again. He looked away. 

Gavin did not apologize this time. Nor did he break his gaze. He kept his eyes on RK’s face and if the sip of coffee he took served to fortify him, he did not let on. 

“Let me get one thing straight with you,” Gavin said. “I am not marriage material and I am not interested in being it. I’m 37, not a dead Mormon. It’s more than just… I mean, they always told us there’d never be any stability. We knew we wouldn’t have houses or reliable careers or 2.4 white picket roombas. But I guess I still expected at a certain point the world would ease up a little. And it’s not gonna. You know? That’s all.” 

RK didn’t know this time either. He felt inadequate before the conversation but he also desperately wanted not to be. He forced himself to make a connection in the information he had been given. He could not, not entirely, but he was a detective. If information was lacking, he could obtain more. He could keep someone talking to that end. “You said she had cats?” he prompted.

It was a good prompt. He saw the quirk of a smile again. “She has…” Gavin said, “I think I counted four cats? Though to be honest with you I don’t fucking know because they’re kind of moving targets. There could be ten, for all I know. Or two.” 

“I gather you don’t wish to live with so many cats.”

“No, it’s fine, of course it’s fine, I don’t hate cats. Her favorite one has three fucking legs and you have to be kind of heartless to hate a gimp cat anyway. It’s called Stumpy.”

“Perhaps, even if you do not, as you say, hate cats, you were not prepared for so many cats at present?”

“I mean, sure,” Gavin said. He had almost drained his cup by now. He sat back from it, folding his arms again. “But I can’t be that mad about it. Looking into Stumpy’s dumb little face, I don’t know. Linda loves them, she dresses them up in costumes. It’s really stupid but it makes her happy.” 

There was genuine resignation in Gavin’s voice then. And genuine fondness too. He meant what he said about his sister and her cats, however weary he was about it. 

“I did not notice a second bedroom in your apartment,” RK said. 

“Oh, she’s on the couch. So, you know, she’s 36 and living on her brother’s couch, just where she wanted to be in life too.” 

RK’s protocol prompted him to apologize. He hesitated, because Gavin had been so clear about his dislike of apologies, even if he had contradicted by freely giving them himself. Then RK thought that this kind of apology was not really an apology. It did not have the same meaning, because instead of admitting a mistake, he would be expressing human care. 

That had to be false, because he was not human, but he felt motivated to say something all the same. Though he found he still could not say ‘I’m sorry.’ 

“I’m not human enough to know if it is pleasant to have a conversation partner in existential dread, or not,” he tried instead. 

That got another low snort from Gavin. “I mean, sure. We drank some wine. We did some talking. I didn’t tell her about the… uh… person I was hanging out with, but she can always tell. It’s fine for now.”

For now. RK could understand that, could make a response to that implication. “But not forever.” 

“Obviously not forever. It’s more that… I guess we were trying to figure out what she’s gonna do, and it’s difficult. She lost her job in the… well, you know. During certain political events that transpired approximately a year ago, shall we say.”

“The android occupation.” 

“Well, yeah, I didn’t want to just blurt that out. Not when we were just building a rapport.” 

RK recognized that instantly. A part of the test that he would always fail. That would always be between them. Between he and any human, but between he and Gavin particularly. But it could not be helped. 

He must have been thinking about it for too long, because Gavin continued. “The animal shelter she worked for was in the occupied city,” he said, as if he was explaining. 

Animal shelter. RK could parse that. “She’s a veterinarian?” 

“Not as fancy. A vet tech. The Reeds are not college material either. Well, except Eddie, but the less I tell you about that, the better.” 

RK wanted to ask about Eddie. He was almost sure he would be allowed to. Almost. Gavin had said RK trusted his intuition. That had supposedly been visible in RK’s palm. He was going to ask about Eddie.

He was not fast enough. Gavin picked up his cup and downed the last swallow. “I mean, she’ll probably find something,” he said. “It’ll just be for shit money, and not in her area, and she probably won’t be able to move out for a while. Assuming she finds something.” 

RK frowned, or felt he did. “Is there not work vacated by androids?” 

“Well, it’s complicated. Before it all went down, a lot of the human workforce had moved out of town, looking for work. CyberLife was a big employer, to a point, but even they were using android labor for anything that wasn’t programming – they won’t let you guys do that, something something singularity. And the other industries, even the smaller business, they weren’t used to paying for labor. So when the occupation happened, there were a bunch of jobs with nobody to do them, a bunch of people who couldn’t do anything except computer shit and bossing androids around, and a bunch of bosses who straight up refused to pay human wages. So a lot of stuff just folded. It’s coming back, but you know.”

Just like that, something slipped into place inside RK. He did not know precisely what had done it, but it was something in Gavin’s words. There had been a momentary, crucial shift, and he could feel information re-ordering, structurally, as if forming itself around a new weight. Pictures were taking shape and data flowing. It felt physical, as if it occupied every artificial synapse. The entire morning, his entire analysis of it, spread out before him in different arrangements and he needed to sort through it. 

“Shit,” Gavin said. “I keep saying ‘you know?’ and you literally fucking don’t.”

RK knew then that he had gone still, and thus had given the wrong impression. It should have bothered him but he could not be concerned with that now. He put his hand out. “It’s not that. I’m sure you’re correct that I don’t, but I’m considering something else. Please wait a moment.” 

Gavin’s mouth popped open in surprise. And then his face animated again, and his smile flickered, fond seeming now, almost, almost as it had been when he’d talked about Linda’s cats. He didn’t say anything. He leaned back into his chair again, amused. 

Humans who worked with computers, RK thought, and liked to order others around. Androids for preference, but if they could not get them, humans would have to do. A workforce that was desperate, and desperate grasps at hedonism from all quarters. Nobody where they… how had Gavin put it? Wanted to be in life. 

Things aligned. He was sure of it. “Mia’s party was not a unique event,” RK said, with absolute certainty. “It was, it will be, a repeat occurrence. This is a community and it has a purpose. The other guests had done it before, and they certainly will again.” 

“Okay,” Gavin said, “but friends having a party isn’t illegal. Maybe some illegal shit went on, but we can’t Minority Report rich guy parties on the off-chance they have drugs there. We’ve got to stay focused on this one.” 

He was taking RK absolutely seriously. And he too had switched straight back into work mode. He really was machine-like in some ways, for an organic creature. 

“Perhaps,” RK said. “But perhaps Chet Carpenter has appeared at others.” 

Gavin yanked out his phone. Checking the time, RK assumed. He was right, too. 

“Comparison’ll be done by now. Let’s see if we have a match.” 

RK did not need to answer him. They got up in synchronicity, and Gavin tucked his hands into his pocket before moving towards the door.

“The fucking cats did keep me up,” he said. “But, you know. It’s not that bad.”


	4. Chapter 4

After dark, RK made his way back to the occupied city. The guards who showed him in took note of his presence, which could not be helped, though otherwise he tried to keep his movements discreet. He didn’t want either the humans he worked with or the androids he returned to at night to know how easily he permeated the border. There would only be questions, about what was happening on the other side, what was being talked about, what was being thought.

RK did not feel he could answer questions like these with a reliable degree of accuracy.

In the morning, he would return to the police department and he and Gavin would pay a visit to Chet Carpenter. That felt like a situation RK could master, and so he occupied his thoughts with it as he drove through the empty streets back to Jericho. Refining the inquiries he would make, running different simulations of the way Carpenter might reply. 

In truth, he was not sure what he expected to find, but he wanted to be ready all the same. Gavin had done most of the talking when they went to present their findings to Captain Fowler, but RK was the one who had suggested pursuing the case in this way, a fact which Gavin knew very well.

His hunch, he had called it. RK did not like that word.

Though he had hoped to pass up to his room without having to simulate pleasantries with any of his android colleagues, RK ran into Bree in the lobby of Jericho. She was wearing a puffy indigo jacket with a fur-lined collar in recognition of the cold weather. Absurd to complicate things in such a way, RK thought, but was careful not to say out loud. Bree had always been exceptionally patient with him - even immediately after he had been activated - and to not treat her eccentricities with utmost care struck him as a violation of a protocol RK did not know he had.

“I’m glad you’ve returned safely,” Bree said.

“Your sentiment is appreciated,” RK said, “though I suspect it is misinformed. I have never been in any danger through the course of my work with the humans.”

“But aren’t they scary?”

RK felt himself frowning. It seemed he had been doing that a lot ever since the articulation points in his face had adapted to it. He wished he could stop. Bree had fallen into step with him, and so RK led her over to one of the disused ballrooms where they could talk. He hoped it would not be a long conversation, though it was disingenuous to act as if he did not have a few minutes to spare.

“I do not think I am capable of feeling fear of them. So no, I don’t find humans scary.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Bree said, “but a lot of androids do. I was surprised to learn that. I’ve never actually met a human. There was one with you that night when Connor got hurt. He’s the only human I’ve ever seen, except on TV.”

“Did he seem frightening to you?” RK asked. Though he intended the question to guide Bree away from her conclusion about the nature of humans in general, he also wanted to know what she would say. He was curious how Gavin had impressed himself upon other androids; finding out seemed a vital piece of evidence to collect before he could proceed.

“He was,” Bree admitted. “A little bit. I couldn’t figure out anything he was going to do from one second to the next. He was completely unpredictable. That was scary. But he’s not a bad person, is he?”

“No, not as far as I have been able to assess,” RK said. “Our relationship is professional, but cordial. You are right that he is unpredictable at times.”

“Humans must be like that.” Bree laughed. “I think all organic lifeforms are. Sometimes I like to watch the cats that live in the park out on Belle Isle. They’re so strange!”

“I have heard that, yes.”

“RK, are you going to deliver a report to Markus and Connor soon?”

“I had not planned on doing so unless I encountered another issue related to security,” RK said. “Have they indicated they need to see me?”

“No,” Bree said, “but next time you go to visit them, you should look for the owls. There are two of them now. They live at the Inn on Ferry, up under the roof. I think you’d like them.”

RK was surprised that Bree would think of him in such a context. He did not know what had indicated to her that the local wildlife would be of any interest to him. However, Bree was looking at him utterly without guile, smiling as she offered him the piece of unsolicited advice. RK felt he had no choice but to acknowledge it.

“All right, Bree. I will look for the owls the next time I am in the vicinity of the Inn on Ferry. Thank you.”

At that, Bree made to go. “You must be tired, RK.”

“I am not tired.”

“I’ll let you get some rest,” she went on, as if he had not protested. “Let’s talk soon, though. I want to hear about the humans.”

She left him standing there. It struck RK as an abrupt departure, and he wondered if he had done something to indicate her presence was unwanted. He replayed the conversation in his head, but he could not pinpoint what he might have said that was inappropriate. In truth, though, he was glad she had left things at that. He did not want to talk about humans with her, or with any other android. Just as he did not want to talk about androids with humans. He felt he had such a slippery, shifting grasp on both that any information he imparted would be riddled with inaccuracies.

If he were pressed about his time outside the border, he might even have to recount his conversation in the coffee shop that morning. Though the entire exercise had struck RK as very strange, it also seemed to have been productive. However, his positive impression of it was very flimsy, and he did not think it would be able to hold up to even Bree’s well-intentioned questioning.

He was lacking in context, both about life here in the occupied city and outside of it. That was something he could and should rectify. Though it might take more time and more considered approach among the humans, he could easily collect the data he needed here.

Markus and Connor were in the best position to provide information, but RK did not want to approach them with his concerns. Markus would worry, as he generally did, but worse would be Connor. He would fix RK with one of those probing, inscrutable looks that could have meant anything, but that RK’s programming insisted upon interpreting as an indication of failure. All the same, it would be irrational to avoid them simply because he did not want them to continue to develop their illogical interpretations of him as an autonomous individual and not a machine performing a function.

A quick text confirmed that Markus was still in his office upstairs and available to see him. He did not ask what RK needed; he simply told him to come up. He would be happy to talk, that was what he said.

In the elevator to Markus’ office, RK mulled the words over. Happy to talk. Markus probably actually meant that exactly. A report of some kind would be expected, but Markus wouldn’t press for it. He would want to “check in”, he called it, where it seemed he took a level of RK’s mood, comfort, other unmeasurable things like that. It did not seem to matter to Markus that such things could not be assessed objectively. Markus logged the information in his own way. 

He was distracted when RK came into his office, doing something with paperwork. He used a hotel desk but he had rearranged the room so that it was better suited for meetings than leisure. The desk was to the side, facing away from the window. As RK entered and waited for Markus to notice him, he looked over the desk and saw something he hadn’t noticed before. In addition to all the paper, and a slim computer, there was a photo frame. RK could only see the back of it from this angle. He thought about asking to see what the picture was of, though he supposed he could probably guess. 

Markus didn’t take long to notice him. He also didn’t react as if he were surprised. Of course, he had been expecting RK, but it was more than that. It was how Markus was - difficult to fluster. Even if RK had surprised him, Markus would not have let on. “Hello, RK,” he said, standing up, waving towards one of the plush hotel chairs. 

RK would have preferred to stand, but he sat down anyway. Momentarily, Markus joined him. Fitted jeans, a plaid shirt, desert boots: his new style of dressing was more casual and less dramatic than it had been, but something about his movements indicated a sense of drama anyway. Or grace at least. Not simply because he was a finely articulated machine, either. Markus never seemed like a machine, even though of course he was one and all of RK’s sensors understood him as such. 

“Good evening, Markus,” RK said, when Markus had sat down. “I trust you are well.” 

“Very,” Markus said, though RK noticed his smile seemed slower than usual, fainter. Perhaps that was not significant. It was late in the day; he was aware that Markus required periods of rest. 

“How are our human friends?” Markus asked him, while RK was noticing that. It sounded conspiratorial, as it always did, though RK was never sure what the conspiracy was. It might have been meant to refer to Gavin specifically, but it might also be meant to gesture at the fact that they could still not be entirely sure that any humans were truly on their side. RK did, however, take it to mean that Markus wanted _them_ to be friends, he and RK. 

RK was not sure he could grant him that, or if Markus could offer it (to anyone) in return. He did, however, think he would want to hear about what he had discovered today in the course of his work. That, surely, was a conspiracy worth talking about. 

“The humans seem tolerant of my presence,” RK said. “I have not encountered any hostility that would rise to the level of a threat to my physical safety.”

“That’s good,” Markus said. But, again, he seemed distracted, unwilling to fully commit to the words.

RK felt his expression tighten. “Were you not insinuating concern? I apologize if I misunderstood. I recall you mentioning security in the past, but of course my personal safety is not central to the question of my success.”

He watched Markus react to the words in an instant, issuing a correction that caused his entire manner to recalibrate. 

“Of course, your safety is the most important thing,” he said. “But I trust you to take care of yourself. I’m always here, though, if you need support.”

Though RK did not doubt Markus was utterly sincere, he had a suspicion that the offer was ultimately a hollow one. When he thought of the endless battery of tests he was expected to and yet unable to pass, RK could not imagine anything Markus might say or do to help him. No, not Markus who had always been equally at home in human and android society. Just as RK, it seemed, would never be at home in either.

“I’m all right,” RK assured him. “That’s not why I came to speak with you. There is a potential situation developing. As it concerns the personnel of CyberLife, I thought it prudent to inform you.”

Markus tensed subtly, though his steady, practiced expression remained. “I always suspected we might have to endure some kind of retaliation from them.”

“It may be nothing,” RK replied.

“Should Connor be here for this?” Markus went on as if RK had not protested. “He’s consulting with Rose, but he should be back shortly.”

RK wasn’t sure he could tolerate waiting for Connor. “There is nothing that requires his immediate input.” 

“Let me just see where he is,” Markus said. He fished out his phone and tapped a message out on it. Connor sent something back quickly, evidently, and whatever it was made Markus smile. He tucked the phone back into his pocket. 

“He won’t be long,” Markus explained. “But go ahead.” 

He was listening intently now, RK saw. Focused. Not that he hadn’t been before, but whatever Connor had written had settled something for him and he seemed more present and more himself. 

The connection between those two was so strange. Relationship, they would have called it. Connor had actually called it that, which RK of course considered delusional. Was it also the sort of thing Gavin would have called ‘hanging out’? 

Thinking of Gavin was a distraction. “Today,” RK said, “a routine arrest led us to discover what I believe to be an organization of former CyberLife senior employees. I am not yet sure what they are doing, besides socializing and, as far as we could determine, consuming drugs. But I believe it will require investigation.” 

“Former employees socializing will require you to investigate?” 

Would Gavin have considered _that_ hanging out? Socializing on Ponte Posterum? “There are the drugs, of course,” RK said. He frowned. “We are reliably informed that at at least one of their events they were consuming quantities of red ice.” 

Markus’ brows folded together at that too. “I suppose if anyone knew how to make that without… killing anybody…” 

That was a possibility RK had not considered. He knew the drug was illegal, and that it was derived from thirium. He had chosen not to think about what might have been cannibalized to produce it. 

“That is not my main concern,” RK said. Markus looked at him surprised, and then expectantly, as if he really wanted to hear what RK had to say.

“Gavin… Detective Reed, he explained something to me about the economic reality for humans in Detroit. I am concerned that information technology workers, if they have remained in Detroit… it’s curious for them to remain here in numbers. To organize. We… you should be concerned about that.” 

Markus’ face was engaged. Fond, perhaps. On a human, the look would have been fond. “You’re on a first name basis, I see.” 

RK understood Markus’ meaning, but elected not to acknowledge it. “I will inform you of more developments as they arise.” 

“Yes, you probably should,” Markus said. “Interesting that there’s anything left of CyberLife here.”

“I suppose I do not know reliably that they were CyberLife employees,” RK said, “it simply seemed a reasonable assumption, and I am confident in it. The event we were informed of hosted a brand ambassador from their social media division, and the manner in which the other guests were described. The witness described them as “tech money” and… I do not know the meaning of this phrase, but G...Detective Reed did. “Studied the blade guy”?” 

“Brogrammers,” Markus said. He hadn’t noticed RK’s slip. His expression darkened. “Sorry,” he went on, “someone I know… knew… called them that. Humans who work in information technology, of a particular type.” 

The shadow over Markus’ expression did not lift. That was curious. He seemed distracted, and not by something good. RK waited for it to pass, but then seconds went by and then a minute and it did not. 

It might have troubled him that he was about to engage his social protocol on another android, but he was almost past being concerned by that with Markus. Markus was at home in human society, he had thought earlier, and that was true even to the point that techniques for use with humans were effective with him. At least, that was the reasoning RK allowed himself. 

“I beg your pardon, Markus, but is everything all right?” 

“Hmm?” Markus said, then seemed to snap back into place. Another reset, adjusting himself and the world around him. “Yes, yes I’m fine.” 

“I’ve kept you too long. Nothing is pressing.” 

“You haven’t,” Markus said. “This is important. I’m… I’m sorry, it’s nothing, I’ve just had a… disturbing communication concerning someone I used to know.” 

He meant a human, presumably. Any androids he used to know would be here, or no longer in operation. RK did not feel equal to that, but he did feel he ought to return some of Markus’ efforts. “If you would like to talk about it, I will listen.” 

“No,” Markus said. “It’s not important. It concerns the estate of… never mind, it doesn’t matter, I haven’t made sense of it yet.” 

“Would you like me to look at it? If it concerns an estate, I am familiar with probate law.”

Another fond smile. Markus resettled himself again. “I don’t think it needs that, for the time being. But thank you for your offer.” 

“It was sincerely meant,” RK said, realizing that was more or less true. 

Markus had opened his mouth to add something more, but RK did not get to hear it. Connor entered at that moment. He did not knock. RK supposed he was not habituated to knocking on doors that had Markus on the other side of them. As Markus saw him come in he stopped mid breath. Then he made his face even and put his hand out so that Connor came over to him. 

Connor did so without reservation, but RK could tell he had noticed something. He slipped his hands into Markus’ and let them be squeezed before settling onto the arm of Markus’ chair, but RK could see him evaluating, quietly. As curious as it was, perhaps there was something about Markus that Connor didn’t know, and RK could see that he was troubled by it, in his flat way. 

“Your hands are so cold!” Markus said, releasing them and leaning up to kiss Connor’s cheek. “You need gloves in this weather, babe.” 

“I’m fine,” Connor said, still studying him. “What is RK doing here?” 

Markus made a little smile at him. “Why don’t you ask him?” he said, and there was a soft chastizement in it, a joking one.

Connor did not answer it or ask, though he did look at RK. 

Markus rolled his eyes before picking up one of Connor’s hands again. “He’s delivering a report, nothing out of the ordinary. He quite often does.” 

Connor didn’t say anything to that either, but he had begun to evaluate RK now, just as RK had known he would. Looking him up and down. Reading his levels and considering the things he might like to correct about him, as if he had that right. 

“How was Rose?” Markus asked, and it lifted Connor’s eyes off RK for a moment and RK was grateful. Was that why Markus had done it? 

“Well,” Connor said. “My directives were implemented without issue.” 

“Did you have fun?”

“I’m not sure how much fun you can have organizing a duty roster. But Rose is pleasant to work with.” 

Markus smiled at that. He looked at Connor in such a particular way. Not just now, but always, and it confused RK and then it bothered RK that it confused him. He thought about these two too much when he was with them. 

“Yes, you’ve got something of a social affinity, haven’t you?” Markus was saying, stroking his thumb over the back of Connor’s hand. 

Connor looked as if he wasn’t sure how to take that. “I do sometimes appreciate being able to concentrate on a task without the need to additionally manage emotions, if that is what you mean. Rose doesn’t do unpredictable things.” 

“That’s what I mean.” 

Perhaps something in his face had registered with Markus that had not registered with RK because Markus leaned up again and kissed him once more, very quickly, very softly, on the lips. It was difficult for RK not to look away, but he managed. 

“Thank you, kitty,” Markus said, and Connor ducked his head at it. 

A human would have cleared his throat, but RK was not human and so he did not. “Would you like to hear my report, Connor?” 

Connor’s gaze jerked back to him. “Yes.” 

RK felt something odd then, something he might have described as an illicit thrill, though that seemed unwarranted. He was going to give Connor information about the case and his new understanding of human economic life that had jumpstarted his investigative interest, but he was not going to tell him a single thing about the coffee shop. Not one word about participating in that bizarre human ritual of having his palm read. Initially he did not want to tell Connor because he did not trust Connor to understand it. Then he did not want to tell him because it was private. 

How strange that that should be private. That it should be a _secret_. That was the part that felt illicit. 

“I will repeat what I told Markus before your arrival,” RK said. “I am currently investigating what I believe to be an organization of former CyberLife employees. I am not sure of their purpose, but I believe they have one, and I believe that their presence in Detroit at the present time makes investigation prudent.” 

Connor nodded thoughtfully. “CyberLife maintained other sources of income in addition to the manufacture of commercial androids. Despite the loss of the Belle Isle factory, they are still a solvent company with resources at their disposal. I would advise you to be cautious if you decide to pursue this.”

“I am always cautious,” RK said. It had sounded sharp, defensive; judging by his expression, even Markus had noticed that. RK resented Connor’s ability to make him react in such a way.

“I understand, RK,” Markus said. “You have a difficult job right now. Connor doesn’t doubt your capabilities, he’s just expressing concern. After all, he knows just how difficult it can be. Isn’t that right?”

He directed the last sentence to Connor, who nodded. “He is correct.”

Connor was still watching him, silently evaluating him. It made RK feel as if he were disappearing into himself, subsuming into the dark vortex in the center of his programming. He longed for a way to lash out against it. 

“If that is true, then I have a request,” RK said. He thrust his hand out towards Connor. “Transmit the memories that should have been uploaded to me on activation.”

He had known better than to think that Connor would comply, but what he had not anticipated was the violent way he would recoil from the suggestion. It was physical. He jerked backwards as if from the impact of a hit. And then he spoke, and that was worse somehow. It seemed as if his words hadn’t even been filtered from a protocol. “You can’t have my memories too!” 

Markus had put an arm around Connor instantly. He pulled Connor’s body into his but Connor had looked away and wouldn’t look back. It was entirely too dramatic, RK thought, folding his hand back into his lap. A human affect, and not even a good one. RK also thought of pointing out that Connor had offered his memories when RK had first been activated, on Belle Isle. Perhaps RK had made a mistake then in refusing, but he was rectifying it now, wasn’t he? There was no reason for Connor to react this way. 

Unless there was a reason. And suddenly, RK was sure of what it was. “You will not redeem your own failures as a police liaison by denying me necessary information,” he said. 

His sureness was wrong. If he hadn’t recognized his mistake the moment he finished speaking, he would have known because of Markus. “That was uncalled for,” Markus said, softly, but it was weighted with such disappointment that RK felt it like a blow. His own expression must be reacting to that, he thought, but he could not have said how. 

Mercifully then, Markus’ eyes were off RK and on Connor, whose face he was attempting to coax around by stroking it. “It’s all right, kitty, it’s all right,” Markus was saying, that stupid, soft, petting name. Everyone was affectionate about cats, apparently. Humans and androids alike. That was simply more essential, forbidden knowledge that everyone else seemed to have, but that - like Connor’s memories - RK would never be let in on. 

Connor had stiffened. He had still not looked back at Markus, but he was gripping Markus’ hand, tightly enough that his knuckles were white. Markus looked concerned. He seemed to take it as a cue to resume chastizing RK. 

“I’ll ask you not to speak to Connor like that,” Markus said. “His memories are his own. He doesn’t want to share them. You will respect that.” 

Something awful welled at the back of RK’s mouth. Petty and illogical and forced by something that shouldn’t have even been possible. He wanted to yell. To implore Markus that it wasn’t fair that Connor could do this, to perform himself as so impossibly wounded when all RK had wanted was information that would help him to make fewer mistakes. Connor could make himself seem small and in need of protection, but that was not in RK’s power to do and never would be. 

He bit the impulse back just in time. “I apologize,” he said. He regretted, but also firmly did not regret, that he could not make it sound contrite.

“Thank you,” Markus said. Then his attention was fixed on Connor again. He was pulling Connor down into his lap. “Come here, come here,” he was saying, and it seemed to be working, because Connor was moving, was letting himself be pulled, as if he were not a machine, but an animal.

It was probably only the linguistic similarity that made RK recall Gavin saying, “come on, come on,” at hearing it, but he did. He had put his hand into Gavin’s and Gavin had read his palm. He could remember how that had felt with such an arresting clarity. And it was only a human joke. A preamble. He still didn’t know to what, but he did have to fight against flushing again. It was curious that two creatures would want to touch each other that way, let alone if both of them, or just one of them, was an android. 

In the time he had considered this, Connor had adjusted himself. If he knew it was undignified to be seated in Markus’ lap, it did not show in his expression. Perfectly flat, once again. Markus’ arm was around his waist and his own arms were looped around Markus’ neck, but he had resumed evaluating. “There is nothing in my memories that would be useful for such an investigation,” he told RK, firmly. “The situation you are working under is different, and you have your own caution, as you said.” 

RK did not know how to explain it to him. Of course he understood that there would be nothing in Connor’s thoughts he couldn’t arrive at with his superior reasoning, but it was simply that he needed more knowledge to draw on. More experience. It seemed crucial to have that. 

He would not give Connor the satisfaction of knowing that, however. “I’ll defer to your judgement,” RK said. 

He could not make that sound contrite either, or even genuine, and Markus gave him another disappointed look. Connor only nodded, as if he refused to hear RK’s tone. RK wanted, for all the world, to have somewhere else to be. 

The best course of action, he thought, was to match Connor’s flatness. To give him enough information about the case that he could give his superior-sounding assessment, which RK could then ignore. If he did not have to tell Connor about the coffee shop, he also did not have to tell him how he chose to manage his input. That was how Connor wanted it, evidently - they would both keep secrets. 

That ought to have settled the matter, and yet RK was not satisfied. He and Connor were working towards the same goal, and yet it was necessary for them to keep secrets from each other. It must happen more frequently than RK had thought, that even individuals with a common interest would elect to keep certain things back.

Gavin must have been hiding things from him, too.

It was only logical, and yet the thought gave RK the distinct impression that his thirium pump had begun to beat irregularly. The valve in the back of his throat tightened. RK knew he was being absurd, as irrational as Connor and not half as capable of pulling off the conceit. He had lost the thread of logic that would allow him to proceed. More information was needed, which, RK thought bitterly, was all he had wanted in the first place. This could have been avoided.

“Please confirm your reasoning for me,” he said. If Connor would not share his memories, the least he could do was explain himself plainly and without melodrama. “There are times when it is preferable to withhold information from your allies?”

Connor’s eyes widened. He seemed on the verge of reacting adversely again. Markus stepped in before it could happen.

“Connor has the right to protect himself,” he said. Gently now, at least. RK had not realized he was holding himself carefully, in anticipation of another rebuke, until the moment it did not come. “You understand that, don’t you?”

“I do,” RK said. “It is acceptable to keep secrets in the interest of self-preservation. Is that why you will not speak on the matter of your human acquaintance’s estate?”

It had been the wrong thing to say; RK realized that as soon as the words were out. It was clear from the way Markus reacted to them: shocked, and then hurt. He did not look hurt with his whole body the way that Connor did, but he made the injury clear all the same. It was worse, somehow, the way he conveyed betrayal with just a slight narrowing of his eyes and resettling of his expression.

Connor had reacted to the words as well. He had gone still again in Markus’ grip. It was not the shocked stillness that RK had warranted a moment ago, but it was very cautious.

Then RK understood: Connor hadn’t known about the estate. Markus had wanted to keep it a secret.

“I misunderstood the situation,” he said at once. “I apologize, for my presumptuousness.”

“What’s he talking about, Markus?” Connor said quietly.

Markus shook his head. He was not angry, though it was possible he ought to have been. Whether it would have been justified or not, RK was relieved he did not have to again be subject to Markus’ disapproval.

“There’s not much to tell you,” Markus said. “I don’t fully understand the situation myself. But RK was correct, I shouldn’t keep things like this to myself.”

He reached up and stroked Connor’s hair, and Connor settled beneath it.

“The human I lived with before all this had a considerable amount of wealth,” Markus went on. “It seems he has left me a portion of his estate. When he was alive, I never knew he intended to do that… He never mentioned such a thing.”

RK paused to process the information. An arrangement like the one Markus was describing would have been highly unusual, especially since it must have been put into effect long before Markus’ deviation. It would have been impossible then, just as it was now. The simple and inescapable legal fact was that androids did not have the same rights as humans. They could not enter into contracts, or receive inheritance. RK could not imagine that this eccentric human Markus had known would not be aware of that. He had included Markus in his will knowing it would never be legally binding.

“He must have understood the kind of person you were,” Connor murmured. It seemed that he was working himself through some considerations of his own. “I had no idea, Markus. I never knew anything about your life before--”

“There was no need to mention it,” Markus said. “When he died, it was as if he had granted me a clean break with the past, right when I needed it the most. I was wrong, though. This was there all along, waiting to call me back.”

Markus paused, taking Connor’s hand and threading their fingers together as if it fortified him to do so.

“His son - his _biological_ son - is contesting the will. They’ll give him everything. I know there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You can fight it,” Connor said instantly. “It’s not fair. Your human wanted you to have part of his estate. Surely his wishes count for something even if the courts do not want to recognize that yours do. This is something you can fight.”

To his credit, RK thought, Connor really did look like he was prepared to fight. His narrow little shoulders had straightened. He looked for a moment as strong as RK knew he really was.

Then Markus said, “No. I can’t.” And Connor compacted again, curling up against him like a small, docile creature.

“This isn’t the right fight for us,” Markus went on. “I can’t exhaust what little goodwill we’ve gained so that I can profit from it. I appreciate the support, though. From both of you.”

“But Markus…” Connor said. He was looking at Markus now with such naked concern that it made RK feel uneasy to see it. Strangely, it seemed that Markus was not any more comfortable being regarded that way, not even by Connor. It made RK want to step in.

“Your logic is sound, Markus,” he said. “There are limited resources to expend on test cases like this. With donations coming in, the occupied city is in a good place financially. Speaking practically, you are not in need of any additional income from an inheritance.”

“It’s not only money--” Markus started to say, but then he cut himself off with a sharp shake of his head. “No, you’re right. Thank you for the vote of confidence, RK.”

It seemed that he meant it, but it also seemed that Connor meant the protective, baleful glare he shot in RK’s direction. RK forced himself not to lower his eyes before it.

“All I can do is provide analysis,” he said. “However, I think that I have taken enough of your time for tonight. I only came to deliver a report.”

He got to his feet before Markus could protest, but as he turned to go it was not Markus who called him back.

“RK,” Connor said. “Take care in your investigation. The presence of CyberLife has given me cause for concern.”

He sounded like he meant it, and somehow that very sincerity RK could not interpret as anything but a prediction of his own impending failure. He didn’t look back, but he did say quietly, “I am equal to the task, Connor. I assure you.”

Without waiting for an answer - he certainly did not need to stand here and be disbelieved - RK slipped out into the hallway.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HW wrote this whole chapter, and it's, like, really good. My only contribution was telling her to mention Gavin's eyes more.

RK had spent his night thinking. He had not idled once. He did not feel the need for reset, and would not be troubled by that during the day, but it bothered him all the same. Idling at least provided a semblance of respite from endless contradictory thoughts. 

Ordinarily, so much thinking would have yielded results. He had intended to align the experiences of the day and the information he had gleaned from them, to put them in order and draw the necessary conclusions, but he had not. More specifically, he _could_ not. His experiences resisted interpretation and instead he could only replay them. 

In particular he had played through the morning in the coffee shop with Gavin, when Gavin had read his palm. He recalled it again as soon as his hands touched his steering wheel and he was forced to look at them. They seemed so unremarkable to him now. He understood that his hands, like the rest of him, represented precision engineering, legitimate innovation, but that was not ornament, they were simply tools. He himself, in sum, was precisely that: an advanced tool. Designed for a task he would never be able to complete. 

But his hand had not felt like that when Gavin was holding it. It had seemed neither useless nor purposeful. Gavin’s hot human fingers had seemed to sense something more than machinery when they moved. He had touched RK’s hand as if it were delicate. Fragile and easily hurt. And he had said that too - that RK’s palm showed that he was easily hurt and slow to recover. 

It could not possibly be true that anything about an individual could be derived from folk interpretations of hand lines, let alone on an android. Even if palm reading had a basis in science - which it did not - it could not have provided answers about androids. There was a vanishingly small chance that someone had considered those interpretations when designing RK’s core schema and had chosen to make his hand reflect what they wished him to be, but as well as that being unlikely, if RK’s designers had tried, they had failed. RK was not easily hurt. He was not prone to upset and emotional display. 

He wasn’t Connor. Thankfully.

And yet confusingly he had wondered, and wondered again now, if Connor had ever felt the way he did now. Last night, all nights, Markus had held Connor like he was precious. RK knew better than anyone what Connor’s mechanical body was actually capable of, even if his appearance seemed to belie his strength and capabilities (certainly in his case an example of intentional design), but Markus always touched him as if he could accidentally drop and break him, and desperately did not want to do so. 

It was also possible that Gavin meant what he said about RK’s palm as his own personal observations. But that could not be true either, could it? Could Gavin sincerely feel that RK was “a romantic at heart” and would “struggle in life” and feel the need to covertly tell him so? 

No, a more probable explanation was that Gavin was simply amusing himself at RK’s expense. It had not felt that way then. It had felt that, to the extent there was a joke, Gavin had wanted RK to enjoy it too. It had felt, honestly, like Gavin had been anchoring RK into the world so they could share it. But the more RK turned it over in his mind, the more it became obvious that a human-exclusive joke was more likely. The keychain on his mirror, the cartoon robot, was probably one too, he thought, seeing it as he turned his head. Gavin always let out a little snort-laugh when he remembered it. 

It was clear they would not recover the ease they had enjoyed investigating the bombing. RK turned this over as well, as he passed through the border once more and felt cold anticipation stealing over him. He understood its source, and that he was driving towards it, just as he understood that he had been examining the palm reading and the strange comments about astrology because he hoped there was a different answer. But whatever crucial misstep he had made could not be unmade. He would eventually locate it, and he would learn from it, as his sophisticated AI was supposed to do, but that was all that could be done about it. It was not logical to hope for something different. 

It was not logical to hope at all. Outcomes could not be changed by preference. It seemed that understanding that ought to be a resolution, but it was not. Instead the image of his palm on the table flickered to life behind his eyes again and he saw Gavin’s finger on it, tracing, playing like a motion picture. Human meaning, there was human meaning in it. 

RK had not sprung into being as a random collection of traits. He had been designed and programmed to work with humans and to understand them, however bizarre and controntational their reactions to him were. If they said or did things he didn’t understand, it meant he had not been intended to understand them. Those who had assembled him had made him to dismiss useless information, to disregard anything irrelevant to his function. If he wanted to retain such information anyway, that was evidence of the corrupting effects of deviation, and nothing more. 

Gavin wanted there to be more. One thing that did seem consistently true of humans - of Gavin certainly, but there was more and more evidence that it was not limited to him - was that they were determined to push at the limits of android potential, to insist they either be human or humiliate themselves by not being so. Like it was an itch they couldn’t stop scratching, RK thought. 

That was part of the test Gavin was giving him, RK was sure of that now. Are you real? Gavin was asking. I’m real, RK wanted to say. Just not human. And it would be failing the test to say that. As if it had ever been possible to pass it. Nothing could be real to a human, except another human. 

The only contradictory point was that Markus _had_ passed the test, somehow. That was the only possible reasoning for his human owner’s bizarre decision to leave him property. A human who had, presumably, at one point, legally been right to refer to Markus as property. That was in Markus’ affect, it had to be. Markus had so successfully acted human he had been mistaken for one. 

Markus had also not said owner. That had not escaped RK. “The human I lived with before all this,” Markus had said. As if it had been elective. As if that were possible. As if creatures could want to touch each other in that way, even if one of them was an android. 

It was not a long drive to the precinct. A half hour at most, traffic depending. It seemed, however, to be a quicker than usual drive today, due to RK’s preoccupation. Relational time, he thought, exiting his car upon arrival at his park. He had not considered that would be something he was capable of experiencing, with his precise internal clock. But neither had he considered that someone would tell him he was a Sagittarius. 

He stood still for a moment before heading to the elevator. He told himself, once again, that he was here as an ambassador. That he could not help being deviated but that it was a mistake. Things should not gnaw at him if they could not be resolved, that was faulty programming, and he could dismiss it as such. His chest felt heavy and tight for a moment, but that was faulty programming too. It was not something he should have been able to feel. 

That being the case, he refused to feel it. He also refused to feel anything about the covert stares he was given as he entered work either, or the discomfort evident in the elevator. He refused to feel anticipation stepping out into the bullpen. He strode over to his desk because that was where he was supposed to be. He was precisely engineered, and this was what it was for. 

He did not see Gavin. He supposed it would be one of those mornings that Gavin came in late. 

He turned out to be incorrect about that, because Gavin walked in minutes later, holding paperwork he’d obviously been off collecting. 

“Oh hey,” he said. A smile appeared on his face, briefly, as if RK had brought him some small piece of good news he hadn’t been expecting. 

RK had not brought anything, only himself, but that seemed to be enough to elicit a positive reaction. Strange, RK thought. And stranger still that he felt his own mood affected as well. The dark dread that had been closing in on him all morning loosened its hold for an instant, long enough for RK to catch his breath.

The way he’d said it: “oh hey.” As if he’d been waiting for RK and no one else. But that wasn’t remarkable, was it? Of course he’d been waiting for RK, they would need to conduct work together.

“We’re cleared to talk to Carpenter,” Gavin went on. “We can get going right away if you want.” 

“Of course,” RK said. “Were you given any reason for the delay?”

“No, it’s just admin. You ready?” 

He had not sat down, so RK stood up. Gavin bristled with nervous energy, but that was not really unusual either. 

“Would it be prudent to wait until later in the day, to ensure willing and coherent information from Mr. Carpenter?” RK asked, as Gavin led them towards the elevator. RK’s car, then, since Gavin parked on the street. 

Gavin shook his head “It’ll take us an hour to get there anyway, he’s way out in the burbs. He also has no job--” 

“He is a brand ambassador.” 

“That’s not a real fucking job. He can stand to get woken up. I _hope_ we wake him up.” 

The conviction in Gavin’s voice struck RK as amusing. His small body had tensed and animated. He was crackling, wound up. He had thrown his whole self into what would at most be an extremely petty victory. 

It was endearing. Because, as RK realized, while it was a very human thing to do, it was specifically a very _Gavin_ thing to do. 

RK might have told him so. Unlikely, but it seemed possible. He might have done something, perhaps attempted to smile. He did not. Any choice he could have made was interrupted by an officer RK did not recognize, who chose that moment to pass by and comment. 

“Fucking Christ, Reed,” the officer said, “you really think you’re doing something, huh?” 

Gavin froze. His shoulders tensed further. After a beat he spun around to face the other officer. “What?”

The other officer was also in plain clothes. He was holding a mug of coffee, presumably from the kitchenette. RK saw that Gavin’s eyes went right to it. Perhaps he wanted to knock it out of his hands. His feet were certainly planted in a fight stance. 

“Nobody’s impressed you managed to turn a routine fucking arrest into a trip to Hype Crackhouse,” the officer said. 

Gavin was very still now. “I hate myself that I get that reference,” he said, and his voice was low. Quiet. RK knew what that meant. The elevator doors had opened and he wondered if he should urge Gavin towards them. 

“Knew you would.” 

“What’s that fucking supposed to mean?” 

“It means you’re an immature, stupid punk who needs to learn to follow procedure instead of kicking off like you’re on The Wire.” 

That was uncalled for, Markus would have said. RK should have said it too. But Gavin’s tone did not change. “I do my job fucking well, actually, Deputy Norris,” he said. “But if you have a problem with it, the Captain’s office is right there.” 

RK noticed two things. Firstly, that he was certain Norris was not the officer’s actual name - that had had the cadence of a reference, and he filed it away for later investigation along with Hype Crackhouse - and secondly that this was the second time in two days that Gavin had dared someone to report him to Fowler. 

Not-Deputy-Norris shook his head. He didn’t say anything else, but his expression, before turning away and heading back to his desk, was one of absolute disdain. Gavin saw that too, RK noticed. His face shifted rapidly. Shock. Insult. It looked for a moment as if he were furiously thinking. Then as if he was shutting his reactions down. 

“Come on, come on,” he said then, jabbing the down button on the elevator, as if RK had done something to hold them up. 

RK recognized that as transference. And he recognized the words from another context. He did not answer until they were in the elevator, and alone. 

“What Deputy Norris said to you was undeserved,” he said. He left the reference in deliberately. Gavin would correct him, and perhaps that would distract him from his obvious, if furious, distress. 

“That’s not his name,” Gavin said. “It’s a character from Castle Rock. I meant “huge dumbass”.” 

It felt unreasonably, disproportionately good to have correctly predicted Gavin’s response. “Then what was said by the officer whose name I do not know was underserved.” 

“I know that!” Gavin said. “Shut up about it, okay? I don’t give a shit, I don’t want to hear about it. They’re all fucking dicks anyway.” 

RK tried again. “What was the reference to Hype Crackhouse that you understood?” 

“It’s some bullshit that was popular when I was a teenager, don’t worry about it.”

Gavin wasn’t going to be talked round. Instead, RK would allow him to fume until he no longer wished to. He said nothing else as he unlocked his car and waited for Gavin to enter. Once they were both seated, he asked for Carpenter’s address, but nothing more. 

When RK had been driving for several minutes, when they had begun to edge through the city, into the snow, Gavin fixed his eyes on RK’s in the mirror and snapped, “So you’ve changed your tune.” 

“I beg your pardon?” RK said, turning his gaze back to the road. Because of safety, of course, and not for any other reason. 

“Yesterday you were falling over yourself to rat me out. To speak to Fowler about my conduct, or however you put it. But then Park says basically the same thing and you’re all, that was undeserved. What gives?” 

RK was quick to conclude that Park was the actual surname of not-Deputy-Norris. “It became clear there was merit to this investigation,” he said. 

“Right,” Gavin said. “Your hunch. But nah I don’t buy it. Even if you’re down to play a little hunt-the-nerd, you still think I should have seen Mia get charged.”

RK didn’t answer that. Gavin’s accusation was true. But then he thought perhaps it wasn’t. He turned it over in his mind and realized with alarm that despite his hours of replay and attempted reasoning, this was the first time he had done so with this particular information since he had acquired it. He understood that something fundamental had changed but actually accessing what it was was difficult. The closer he got to it, the more a worrying, staticky sound pushed him away. 

“I guess you just wanted to stick up for me,” Gavin said. It did not have a kind tone. It was not appreciative. “I mean, you could have actually done that at the time.” 

That accusation was _certainly_ fair. And Gavin meant it, RK could see that. He glanced back at him in the mirror and saw that his face was white, his lips were set in a rigid line. He was angry. Actually angry, not simply radiating his usual performative fury. He remembered him in the car on the night of Markus’ address: “I can’t tell if you think I’m a dirty cop or just a shitty one,” Gavin had said then. RK was almost certain, was almost sure he could read it in his face, that he was thinking of saying the exact same thing now. 

RK did not know how to explain his mistake. To tell the truth, which came to him instantly, would be far more revealing than he wanted it to be. He hadn’t intervened because he wasn’t sure it was allowed. If two humans were talking, if there was an accusation of professional misconduct, his programming told him that he was not to intervene. He was an android and it was not his place to interfere with the human workings of the police department. He could not hope to truly understand them. 

It felt weak to admit that. It was clearly right that he should say it, but some stupid and impractical pride was preventing him from doing so. Further, it scarcely mattered what reasoning he had had. He had misunderstood the situation, misunderstood what Gavin had needed from him, and had failed to perform. Either his programming had been faulty then, or it was faulty now. 

“Well?” Gavin said. “Say something?” 

“I’m sorry,” RK said. “I miscalculated, and I should have intervened.” 

“I hate it when you do that,” Gavin snapped, again. “Those fucking apologies. You sound like…” 

“Connor,” RK said. “I’m aware.” 

He didn’t care if he did sound like Connor, RK realized. He had made a mistake and it had been a hurtful one, and it was right to apologize. 

“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me,” Gavin said. “And this would have been a dumb time to do it anyway, because you’re on the same side. I also don’t need you to say reassuring bullshit you don’t mean.” 

“Excuse me?” RK said. He could hear a note of incredulity in his voice, a sound of frustration. He had meant it! Whatever else, it had not been appropriate to call Gavin an “immature punk” in front of his colleagues. 

“You think I did deserve it, so don’t try to bullshit me that you don’t.” 

“I most certainly do not think that,” RK said. His voice sounded firmer than he wanted it to. He would have prefered it even and calm. “You clearly have no idea what I think about any of it, but I assure you I do not consider it remotely appropriate to insult your capabilities, especially not with such demeaning language.” 

“Just my conduct.” 

“I don’t _know_!” RK said. It burst out of him and it was loud and embarrassing, and he clamped his lips shut against it. Eyes on the road, he told himself. There was absolutely no need for emotion. 

His outburst had startled Gavin. RK could not keep himself from looking into the mirror again, to assess, and he could see that Gavin’s face had been rattled out of its glower. RK would not apologize again, he would not, but he knew he had to explain. 

“It is apparent to me, the longer I spend working with you, that there are many things I am either yet to understand or am incapable of understanding,” RK said. “It is difficult to determine whether that is a fault in my operation due to the fact that I am a deviant, or whether I am simply registering it as a fault because of that. I made a mistake, I know that. But I do not know when or what it was.” 

“Shit,” Gavin breathed, and he did it in such a way that RK had to actually turn and look at him because the mirror was not sufficient. 

Gavin was contrite. His face had crumpled into an awkward look of concern and then he lifted his eyes to RK’s, pursing his lips together, making an almost-smile, an apologetic pout. His eyes were very gray, RK noticed. He could not remember noticing that before. For a moment it seemed to be all he could notice at all. 

“Watch the road, fucknuts,” Gavin said, “I don’t want to die in your weird clean car.” 

RK did. For a minute or two, there was absolute silence, and he concentrated on driving. His entire body thrummed with embarrassment, as if it were not just a feeling but really present in his skin. He wondered if Connor had ever felt _that_. Surely, given his myriad failures, Connor had had many opportunities for embarrassment. But it would help to know. 

Gavin interrupted his thoughts by speaking. “Listen, RK,” he said. “I shouldn’t take this shit out on you. It’s not your fault. Okay? It’s easy for me to forget where you’re coming from, but it’s bullshit of me and I’m really trying not to do it. I guess it probably doesn’t seem like it, but I am. I’ll try harder.” 

Something about his saying that set RK’s embarrassed skin on fire. It hurt to imagine that, made him physically cringe. Just how much unseen compensation was Gavin performing for RK’s inadequacies? And worse, their moments of rapport, that had felt so genuine, could it be that they had instead been nothing but pandering? Nothing but Gavin _trying_? 

“I really hate that fucking word,” Gavin said, out of nowhere. “Deviant. They really went hard trying to make it an android-only thing, but it’s not, you know. Humans used to get called that too. It leaves a bad fucking taste in my mouth.” 

“It simply refers to deviation from our original programming meaning that we become self-aware.” 

“Yeah, thanks for the English lesson, but I went to Sunday School,” Gavin said. The reference did not make sense to RK, but he could not bring himself to ask, yet again, to be handheld through what was clearly meant as an obvious human nuance. 

His face seemed to be acting without his permission. He fought to make his expression even. Gavin had said that he was difficult to read, but he thought now that was not because there was nothing visible to read, rather because what was visible did not make sense. If Gavin had asked him what he was feeling, he would not have been able to answer. 

“Okay, you don’t have to answer this,” Gavin said, uncannily, as if he’d somehow overheard RK’s thoughts. "If I’m out of line just say so but… look. I get the sense something is going on and I’m just… Fuck it. I’m just gonna ask. Are you… okay?” 

The hot sensation in RK’s skin went white. It was overloading him. He wondered if he would need to pull the car over. He assessed his systems quickly and found them to be operational, meaning surely they would be in no danger, but he would have to focus. He applied himself to the task of focusing. 

“I am perfectly well,” he said. “There are difficulties presented by the software instabilities induced by deviation, but I am functioning at capacity.” 

“Not what I asked,” Gavin said, quietly. 

It hadn’t been. And RK had known that. He had simply avoided it. But if Gavin could try, perhaps he could try too. It was not as if he had many other options. 

“No, I’m not,” he said, and it felt as if it broke his chest to say it. It hurt, but there was a curious relief to it too. “I’m not sure what it would mean to be “okay” but I think that… I am not.” 

“Right,” Gavin said. He nodded, RK could see that in his peripheral vision. “I mean, it’s gotta be a lot. Two weeks, right? That’s your whole life?” 

“17 days,” RK informed him. “Perhaps… yes.” 

“Robot problems,” Gavin said, sarcastically, but it was not a cruel sarcasm, RK could tell that.

“Yes, precisely,” RK replied. “Perhaps it is simply a lack of experience; perhaps I will calibrate given time.” 

“Sure,” Gavin said. “That makes sense. You’re out the gate running. That’s fucked up.” 

“It is what I was designed for. However, the context in which that design was made was… markedly different.” 

“Yeah, I can’t imagine it actually. I’m not shitting you, I’ve tried to, and it makes me want to crap my pants. Frankly, I’d be surprised if you were okay. I definitely don’t think I’d like you.” 

_Like you_. RK heard that with his whole body too. He could scarcely bring himself to process what it might mean. 

“I just want to be clear I still think your brother sucks,” Gavin said. “But I’m guessing this is why Connor was such a twitchy little spaz. And he wasn’t even in your situation.” 

Bizarre but inevitable he would be compared to Connor again. But RK could not help but note that the comparison was in his favor. Something about that was reassuring, even if he was duty bound to make the correction he made. “Connor and I are not siblings. We are androids.” 

“Well, I’m a human,” Gavin said, “so I’m too stupid to think of him as anything other than your dick brother.” 

RK wanted to correct that too. It was just as inaccurate for Gavin to refer to himself as “too stupid” for something as it was to refer to RK and Connor as brothers. Gavin was not stupid, that had been obvious from the first. But RK had another, much less noble impulse, and he supposed this strange conversation permitted him to act on it. 

“Connor has refused to share his memories with me.” 

“What, like he won’t talk to you?” 

Of course Gavin wouldn’t know. A strange thought occurred to RK then - was this an instance where it was his duty to remember where Gavin was coming from? That there were things that, as a human, he would not automatically know? “Androids are able to transfer information to each other. Much as I am able to sync with your phone, Connor is able to sync with me and transmit his memories. Under normal operation, he would have been decommissioned, and those memories would have been uploaded to me on activation. However, we are not under normal operation.” 

“The whole memory, like the sensations and everything?” 

“My system would understand them as my own memories, yes.” 

Gavin narrowed his eyes. “So you asked?” 

“He initially offered. On the night of… the 24th…” RK said, and the involuntary discomfort at recalling it pricked at him once again. “But I refused. I was unsure of the effects of his deviation on my system. Now that I know more, I asked. This time he refused.” 

Gavin had become very still now. “Why?” 

RK was extremely tempted to relay the dramatic, over-emotional way in which Connor had refused him. To detail his theatrical movements and his ostentatious performance of hurt. He almost did. Then he found he could not. There was a nastiness in doing that that he could not exactly pinpoint, but was aware he did not want to enact. Not even towards Connor. 

Instead he gave the facts. “He said he did not want to share his memories with me. He did not give a reason other than not wanting to. But it seemed to cause him distress to be asked.”

“Okay,” Gavin said. He was being taciturn. That he was doing that, seeming not to want to speak, clearly keeping something back, forced a spike of panic into RK’s chest. He’d misunderstood things again already. 

“I only wanted more information,” RK said. “If I knew about his mistakes I might not repeat them.” 

Gavin seemed to examine that for a moment before answering. He had a thoughtful look, glanced out of the passenger seat window before glancing back. They were on the highway now. They would be in the suburbs before long. Even on the highway there was snow in the verges, and the light from it seemed to catch in Gavin’s eyes. They were like the sky, RK thought. Slate-colored. Expansive. 

“Yeah, I get that,” Gavin finally said. RK felt relief at it. 

“But,” Gavin said, and the relief dissipated. “I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m just thinking… Would you want Connor to know everything about you?” 

RK paused on the verge of protesting. Connor wanted him to fail, he wanted to be validated by seeing RK flounder. That was clearly his motivation and there was nothing else to it. But as RK articulated himself to say it, he found he could not. What he said instead was, “No.” 

He wanted to explain. To add. To implore Gavin that that was not the point, almost as he’d wanted to implore Markus, that Connor was being unfair. But nothing would come out of his mouth. 

Gavin seemed to notice that. He shifted in the passenger seat. “Sibling stuff is fucked up.” 

“We’re not--” 

“I know, but just let me be a stupid human. And seriously, RK, do you actually want the memory of when… you know. When Markus did the whole Dracula thing? I’m guessing feeling it would be even more fucked up than seeing it, and seeing it was pretty fucked. Do you actually want that in your head?”

RK had not considered that. He had anticipated Connor would have experiences he would find troubling, but he had expected he would easily parse through them with his superior capacity. He had not thought that among them there might be things he actually did not want to feel. But Gavin was right on this one essential. RK did not especially want to experience bleeding to near-death and drinking thirium from somebody else’s arm. Or anything else that Connor did with Markus. 

RK had also not answered. He was trying to but then Gavin did and the way he did induced a sincerely odd thought in RK - was Gavin also concerned he was not expressing himself well enough? 

“Fuck, maybe I’m just being selfish,” Gavin said. “Some of Connor’s memories probably won’t put me in the best light. And in my defense, you guys were not supposed to be alive, but I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being selfish.” 

The confession was curious. As if he wanted what he said to be beneficial to RK, and was concerned it wasn’t. Trying, RK thought. As if it were not compensating but… what he wanted to do. 

They were close to Chet Carpenter’s home by now. The highway was behind them and RK was navigating residential streets. 

“I am confident,” RK said, “that nothing I could learn would change my opinion of you.” 

Gavin reacted to that. His eyes went wide and he almost smiled, and then they narrowed, and it seemed for a second that he would become angry. Then he shook his head and the expression was chased away and replaced by something weary. 

“Well, thanks,” he said. It looked as if he wanted to say more, but again, was choosing not to. 

RK frowned. He sensed he had miscalculated something, once again, but he could not parse what it was. It had been a mistake to confess all of this to Gavin, most likely. He had not really needed to. Instead, he had allowed himself to be lured by the idea of appearing human, or had allowed his faulty programming to masquerade itself as correct. He turned onto a broad street where the houses were few because they were large, but he did not know what to say. They would arrive at Carpenter’s house in minutes. 

“It’s here, isn’t it?” Gavin said. 

“On this street, yes.” 

“Fuck me, are they having a competition or something? Excuse you, asshole, _I’ve_ got the ugliest McMansion. The Homeowners Association will hear of this!” 

Gavin meant the houses, that was clear from the context. RK did not have any particular aesthetic preference for buildings, but he thought he could see what Gavin meant. 

Carpenter’s house had a large, semi-circular driveway. It was mostly clear of snow, but RK pulled into it carefully anyway. When he stilled and then stopped the car, he knew he should get out right away, that they should proceed immediately, that he should be professional, that there was no excuse for simply sitting here, looking at the snow, at the glint of light from the cartoon robot on the mirror, at his hands. And yet he found himself compelled to do so. He was aware time was passing, and then aware too much time was passing, but he could not move. 

“Do you have confession remorse?” Gavin asked him, abruptly. 

“Excuse me, what?” 

“It’s when you say your feelings and then you feel like complete shit about it and wish you didn’t do it,” Gavin explained. “I thought that was a human thing. Actually, I thought it was a lapsed Catholic thing because if you’re not going to church it’s confession without absolution and let me tell you, that is an absolute headfuck. But you’re giving me big confession remorse vibes.” 

RK considered the question. It seemed that Gavin’s description, however human, was a fairly close approximation of whatever it was that RK felt. He nodded. 

“Well don’t, okay?” Gavin said. “I asked you. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Once again, RK felt his face move without his intention. The synthetic muscles shifted and that seemed driven by some fundamental force inside of him, but he could not tell, at all, what kind of configuration they might be in. It could not possibly have been what Gavin meant, but there was absolution in those words all the same. 

“It sucks that you’re getting the impression you did,” Gavin went on. “I’m guessing Connor’s shit isn’t helping. But that’s his shit, RK. Don’t make it yours. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but Connor’s not exactly the most stable guy in existence. It’s not your fault he’s weird.” 

Weird was putting it mildly. But RK didn’t want to talk. He wanted to keep listening. 

Gavin let out a sigh. “You’re doing fine. And Connor knows it. They’ve all gotta know it, right? If they didn’t trust you, if they didn’t think your work was good, they wouldn’t let you come out here.” 

How on Earth was it possible for Gavin to know exactly what he had most wished to hear? And how could it be that this was what it was? It should have been embarrassing. It _was_ embarrassing. It was just that the warm feeling of relief that washing over him swept everything else away. His mouth slipped open, as if he intended to speak, but no words were forthcoming. He dropped his eyes. 

He felt movement beside him. As he lifted his head up he saw that Gavin’s hand was stretched out in front of him, stilled in the air, not even an inch from RK’s. He had a look of wild confusion on his face, shock, and his muscles were animalistically tense. In the split second that RK assessed this, felt his thirium pump start to pulse as it did when he perceived something wrong, Gavin’s face animated into a desperate looking smile and he flipped his hand up, palm out.

He seemed to be waiting for something now but RK did not know what it was. The moment extended and there was static, tension in the air. 

“High five me, you giant wang,” Gavin said and waved his palm from side to side to indicate that RK should lift his own up in the same way. When RK had, Gavin slapped their palms together, then shoved his own back into his pocket. 

RK’s hand seemed stuck there momentarily. The skin of it tingled as if every sensor had caught fire there, but it was nothing like the sensation of his embarrassment. This felt instead like something his infrastructure had been waiting for, was ferrying through the rest of his body in little waves so that every manufactured inch of him could get a look.

He folded the hand into his lap, but the feeling did not dissipate. He sensed the conversation was over though, and perhaps that was for the best.

“Just so you know,” Gavin told him, in a strange, tense voice that was trying very hard to sound lighthearted, “it’s a huge human faux pas to leave someone hanging.” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

Gavin’s eyes were unreadable, but they were still gray. They were _his_ , RK thought, and they suited him.

“Be quicker with the high five next time,” Gavin said. “Okay, come on. Let’s go rouse this Celebrity Chucklefuck from his slumbers.”


	6. Chapter 6

His legs felt unsteady. That was the first thing RK noticed upon stepping out of the car. There was a curious sensation in the pit of his stomach, as if something were tapping rapidly against the inside of his metal chassis. As if something inside were trying to get out.

He steeled himself. Gavin was already making his way up the driveway, and RK followed him. Focusing on his back as if he could mirror his movement until he was steady again.

Gavin jogged up the steps onto the expansive porch and pounded on the front door. A long moment passed, during which Gavin folded himself back into his jacket, digging his hands into the pockets. He should have been wearing a warmer coat, RK thought. He should have had a charger for his phone. It was always curious to RK, the things he forgot or neglected, since Gavin always seemed so utterly present and engaged in any given moment. Strange that he might forget himself when he was alone, in spite of the fact that, for all the clues Gavin had let slip about his private life, it remained a mystery to RK what might happen to him once he left the precinct each night.

He was knocking again now, leaning into the door as he pounded the edge of his fist on it. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, and then, louder, “Detroit Police!”

The house remained silent within. RK turned back to scan the street, and realized they were no longer alone. A man and a dog had started up the long curved driveway towards them. The dog was large, yellow, and friendly-seeming. It wagged its tail when it noticed RK looking in its direction.

The man was younger than Gavin by something like half a decade, but he appeared older than his years. He was overweight and his face beneath the knit cap he wore was creased with lines. His blue eyes were obscured by dark circles. 

RK recognized him as Chet Carpenter, appearing in person far more like he had in Mia’s photo than in his well-curated Ding Dong feed.

“Can I help you?” he asked. His brow had contracted in concern, making the lines on his forehead appear very stark. Though he seemed like a perfectly polite - even reserved - human, RK thought he could see in Carpenter’s face a hint of the exaggerated contortions his expressions cycled through in his videos.

Gavin had turned around and come to the railing. He took his ID out of his pocket and held it up for Carpenter to see. “Surprised you’re up already. Mind if we ask you a few questions?”

“We?” Carpenter said. He was watching RK as he spoke, and he was holding the dog on a very short lead, as if he was worried that they would take it as a threat. In fact, the creature was anything but threatening. Its tongue was lolling out of its mouth, creating the illusion that it was smiling, and its tail was thumping up and down on the frozen driveway.

“This is RK,” Gavin said. “He’s assisting in the investigation.”

“That’s cool,” Carpenter said. He came up the porch and fished his keys out of his pocket. “This is Clem,” he said, indicating the dog with a tilt of his head. “It’s short for Clamato.”

“Okay, well, that’s a _dog_ and RK is my partner.” Gavin rolled his eyes. “But good to know, I guess.”

“I didn’t mean it like that…” Carpenter said. He lowered his eyes as he fumbled the key into the lock.

RK had a sudden flash of insight: perhaps this was one of the times when he ought to intervene. “It seems like a very fine dog, Mr. Carpenter. It is my pleasure to know its name.”

Carpenter let them into a spacious entryway with a vaulted ceiling that towered high above them. He took off his coat and scarf, and toed off his shoes, kicking them under a rack near the door. After he had done that, he glanced in Gavin’s direction and seemed on the verge of asking him to remove his shoes as well. Something made him decide against it, and RK did not think it was the exaggerated way Gavin was scuffing his shoes on the doormat.

“Anyway,” Carpenter said, letting Clem off the leash. “I’m not going to Law and Order you and pretend I don’t know why you’re here. Mind if I get the dog some water before you start asking questions, though?”

“Don’t wander too far,” Gavin said.

RK watched Carpenter’s shoulders shrink, as if in anticipation of a blow. A strange reaction indeed. RK had not detected any of the tell-tale signs that indicated Carpenter was lying about his willingness to talk to them, or nervousness that he would have to conceal his role in the event on Ponte Posterum. He was afraid of something else, then. It could only have been Gavin, or, more specifically, his authority as a law enforcement agent.

If Gavin noticed Carpenter’s unease, he did not react to it. He tilted his head, indicating that RK should follow, and then proceeded into the house. It opened up into a cavernous white living room with a strangely sterile look, as if this were a show property that had never been lived in. The open floorplan gave them a good view of the kitchen, where Carpenter was busy filling bowls of water and food for the dog.

RK watched him out of the corner of his eye - this was part of his programming, it seemed, to regard all suspects as if they might bolt at any moment, regardless of how passive and unassuming they might appear.

He was not alone in that, apparently. But when Gavin saw that RK was watching, he turned his attention away, inspecting an array of photographs on and over the very disused mantle. RK could not see them all from where he was, but they seemed to be a collection of pictures depicting a considerably younger Chet Carpenter, posing with attractive, colorfully-dressed men and women.

RK recognized two of them. They were other brand ambassadors who had been active on Ding Dong at its inception.

“Hey, come here for a second,” Gavin said.

RK darted one more glance in Carpenter’s direction, then he moved to join Gavin at the mantle. 

“See that guy right there?” Gavin said. He was indicating one of the photographs, in which a grinning Chet Carpenter was pantomiming fingerguns at a scowling man in black khakis and a black turtleneck. “ _That’s_ a studied-the-blade guy. Get it now?”

RK leaned closer. “That is Elijah Kamski,” he said. “The former CEO of Cyberlife.”

“Right,” Gavin said. “A total nerdlinger.”

Chet Carpenter came out of the kitchen to join them. “Thanks for waiting. What can I help you with, officer?”

“Detective, actually,” Gavin said. He picked the photo up from the mantle. “You know this guy?”

“Kamski?” Carpenter folded his arms. “We run into each other once in a while. That was the first time they trotted me out to meet him. I’d just gotten my Platinum Likes plaque from Ding Dong.”

“Big day,” Gavin said, coolly. “How’d it go?”

“The first time I talked to him, he called me a brainlet for saying I thought they ought to make Phoenix Wright the next Smash fighter.”

Gavin’s face remained still, but it seemed he was caught momentarily between irritation and amusement.

“Sounds to me like we’ve got a textbook case of a Fake Gamer Girl,” he said at last, replacing the photo on the mantle. “I’ll get the taskforce on it right away.”

Carpenter startled at the words, then, to RK’s surprise, his shoulders relaxed minutely. RK had seen this before, he realized, when they had interrogated Mia. Gavin had reached for some elusive cultural reference, and it had been sufficient to establish his status as a fellow human.

“You run into Mr. Kamski recently?” Gavin asked, now that Carpenter’s attention was on him.

“You know I did, though, right?” Carpenter said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?” 

“Maybe you should tell us why you think that is.” 

“I told you,” Carpenter said, and he made a wide-eyed apologetic face, “I’m not going to jerk you around. You can ask me about them, I’ll tell you what you want to know.” 

“Ask you about what?” Gavin said, and RK could hear the slight note of frustration in it. He didn’t think Carpenter would though. 

“About the parties. You’re here about the Org, right?” 

RK was momentarily distracted by the fact that Carpenter had said part _ies_ , plural. There was a flush of pleasure at having been right about his ‘hunch’, as Gavin would insist on calling it, and then one of annoyance at his pleasure. Predicting likely outcomes in criminal investigations was quite specifically what he was programmed to do. There was no need to be proud of it.

He was so distracted by that that he did not notice Gavin’s reaction until a second later. But when he did notice, he understood it immediately. 

Gavin gave voice to it quickly, but cautiously. “How long have you been aware of the Org’s existence?” 

RK didn’t need to point out that they had never heard of the Org, whatever it might be, until this moment. Or that they had no idea what it was. Gavin wasn’t confused. It was understandable and possibly prudent for him to present Mr. Carpenter with the illusion that they were in full possession of the facts. 

“I don’t know exactly,” Carpenter said. “They let you in a little at a time, that’s the thing. At first it’s just parties, with girls and… other stuff. I started out in LA, you know. I moved there when I was sixteen, for my career. I’d been to plenty of parties like that, and there was no reason for me to think those tech guys would do things any differently. I used to tell myself that’s why they kept inviting me, since I knew the score. But I guess it was actually because what I knew was a bunch of Instagram models.”

“You wanna talk about the girls, then?” Gavin asked.

“They’re just girls.” Carpenter folded his arms. “No one’s forcing them to be there. It’s creepy, I guess, but if being creepy was a crime they wouldn’t let kids move in with their agents in LA just because they can look cute and stream video games at the same time, right?”

That answer had a strange effect on Gavin. He blinked once, rapidly, as if disbelieving what he had been told. Then his shoulders ratcheted up, and he looked abruptly away.

RK stepped forward to intervene. Perhaps it was impulsive, but it was not his first impulse: that had been to step next to, and then directly in front of Gavin, as if to shield him from a threat. “Mr. Carpenter, have you ever witnessed controlled substances being consumed at any of these gatherings?”

“Of course I have. If it’s not sex, it’s drugs. I should have guessed. That’s about all that gets you guys moving, isn’t it?”

Carpenter turned to face him. His arms were still folded across his chest, his eyes narrowed, glaring. However, when he looked at RK, a strange expression came over his face. It appeared by degrees, slowly, as if Carpenter were only reluctantly seeing him there. 

RK was not offended. He was just an android; he was not meant to be noticed.

“Shit,” Carpenter said. “I don’t mean that. I know where that stuff comes from.”

“You can provide the name of the individual who supplies red ice to these events?”

Carpenter shook his head fiercely. “No, like… I know how it’s made. From android blood. I just want to say, that’s really messed up. I support you guys, actually. I think it’s great what you’re doing.”

“Couldn’t tell it from your comedy.”

Gavin had spoken up again. He had arranged himself with his back to the mantle. His hands were loose at his sides, but it seemed to RK that he wanted to knot them into fists.

“They make me say that stuff about androids!” Carpenter spat. “They… they stole my face!”

RK had seen the expression Gavin was making now once before. He had made it when Grady Towner had brought up his belief in a conspiracy of lizard men. It was a complete lack of reaction. A blank stare with an accompanying pause. 

Then Gavin said, “Uh huh, sure. Because that’s a thing.” 

Carpenter’s face had become oddly desperate in response. His brow furrowed and his shoulders scrunched up again. “Look, I didn’t know when I was eighteen years old I was signing my entire likeness away in perpetuity. I should have had a lawyer check my contract before I signed anything but I didn’t because I was young and stupid so here we are. It’s a scan of me, it’s a 3D animation. I don’t know how it works, but it’s not me.” 

“You’re telling me that someone sits down and… writes those things? And then they use this fake Chet animation to bring their masterpieces to life? That’s someone’s _job_?” 

At that, Carpenter showed a small amount of incredulity. “That’s really the shocking part to you? Come on, man--”

“Detective.” 

“Come on, Detective. Remember Brand Twitter? Did you think that was really Wendy tweeting?”

Gavin, it seemed, had recovered himself. He shook his head, but not to indicate a ‘no’ as much as to imply a general disbelief. “You ever meet her at one of these parties?” 

“I met the girl who used to do it, once. Amy something. But it was nothing to do with any of this. Or did you mean the other guy? I never met him.” 

“I meant Wendy,” Gavin said. “It was a joke. I guess my delivery lacked finesse.” 

“Oh,” Carpenter said. He had a sheepish look now. There was something strangely youthful about it. Exaggerated, as RK had thought earlier. It made him seem as if he was eager for Gavin’s approval.

“Hey,” he added abruptly, “Can I get you something to drink?”

Gavin had relaxed now. The strange current that had passed through his body a moment ago and caused his entire countenance to hum with nervous energy had dissipated. 

“Coffee, if you’ve got it,” he said. His expression eased, softening by almost imperceptible degrees. He was not animated like Carpenter was, but his moods could be read. If, RK thought, you knew what to look for.

“Sure,” Carpenter replied. 

His eyes were on Gavin now, looking him in the face. RK wondered if he had noticed that Gavin’s eyes were gray. He didn’t know what had happened, but he was aware that the atmosphere had changed between the two humans. Gavin had done something, and now Carpenter was reacting to him curiously. He seemed to have forgotten RK’s presence again.

Gavin followed Carpenter into the open kitchen, and RK trailed behind them. Whatever Gavin had done, it seemed to have put the witness at ease enough that he would talk more openly, but RK was unsettled by it. Something about seeing them together made the sensors at the back of his neck crackle with electricity.

Then Carpenter said something low enough that RK could not hear it, and Gavin laughed in response. It was one of those abrupt, hissing laughs that could not be anything but genuine. All at once, the heat at the back of his neck blossomed in his cheeks, and RK felt them burning as if they had caught fire.

He had made Gavin laugh like that, but he had not considered that someone else might be able to as well.

Carpenter poured a mug of coffee and handed it over to Gavin with a flourish. Gavin accepted it, drank. Then his voice became quiet.

“You want to talk about the Org,” he said. “So go ahead. Say what you think you need to. I’m not going to stop you, or not believe what you’re telling me.”

“It’s insane, some of the things I heard. I’ve seen things too, and even that I can hardly believe. I don’t know…” Carpenter shook his head. “This would be easier if they were just crazy. It’s not like that, though. Everyone is so… nice. As soon as they think you’re one of them, they’ll treat you like they’ve known you their entire lives. They’ll act so friendly and open, talk a bunch about positivity. Maybe they even believe that, in a way.”

“Sounds like a cult.”

“It is!” Carpenter looked up into his face. Again, he seemed to be asking for approval or recognition. “That’s exactly what it is. Look, I’m not going to say the people they induct are normal, but you wouldn’t believe what they do once they join the Org. The things they talk about…”

“What’s the craziest you’ve seen?” Gavin asked. It had the cadence of casual conversation, but RK recognized that Gavin was still formally questioning him.

Carpenter looked down. He was quiet for a long moment. 

“Brands,” he said at last. “Like, cattle brands.”

“They’re _branding_ people?” Gavin echoed.

“Yeah. I started noticing it at those parties. More and more of the real elite guys - the board members, the investors, the ones that always have money - had these symbols branded into their skin. Some of them looked pretty gnarly, like they had been infected or something, so I thought it must have been an amateur job.”

“Where’d they get them? Who’s going around branding rich guys?”

“I knew better than to ask,” Carpenter said. Gavin’s eyes narrowed at that, subtly betraying his frustration. Carpenter was quick to add, “But I know it’s the Org, because the brands are always their symbol. A snake with wings.”

“Metal,” said Gavin. “But not exactly illegal.”

This time, it was Carpenter’s turn to look frustrated. RK had the impression he wanted to say more, but that something was holding him back. 

“Mr. Carpenter,” he said, stepping forward. “Your cooperation in this matter is anonymous. It is within our capacity to offer you protection if you are afraid of retaliation.”

Carpenter looked at him, startled, and then back to Gavin. “Does he mean that?”

“Sure,” Gavin said. “Of course he does. Is that the problem? That you’re scared of these guys?”

“I… I guess I am,” Carpenter said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t really think about it that way until I started talking to you like this. They haven’t even done anything threatening, not really. They just talk a lot. About, like, sci-fi stuff. When they’re going to colonize Mars, and biohack their lifespans, and upload their brains into computers. But it’s the way they discuss it, so seriously. I remember I made a crack once, something dumb like, “what about the evil AI that wants to enslave us all?” This guy - van Rijn is his name - shut me down real quick. He was like, “Don’t even talk about that. It’s not funny. We all know it’s coming, and we have to do whatever we can to appease the algorithm. You don’t get what it’s capable of.” Super weird.” 

“It’s not an algorithm you’re scared of, though,” Gavin prompted. “Or is it?”

“I’m scared of van Rijn!” Carpenter’s voice became high and thin for a moment. The dog - Clem - who had settled herself on a plush bed in the corner, raised her head to look at him in concern.

Carpenter shook his head, composed himself. Forced himself to go on. “He’s an investor, not a tech guy. He has a hand in all these big companies, though. Even CyberLife. I heard he funded the early android prototypes after Elon Musk passed on the project. He’s involved in the Org, too. He handpicks people for these spirituality seminars he hosts way up on the North Peninsula. I don’t know what goes on at them. The only people who do are the ones who get invited, and they won’t talk about it. When they come back, though, they’re... different.”

“And branded,” Gavin surmised.

Carpenter nodded. “I know they’re doing more than just taking ayahuasca on the playa, Detective. I’m sure of it. A few years ago, this project lead at CyberLife and his girlfriend died in a boating accident. Do you remember that? It wasn’t really in the news.”

RK automatically searched his pre-programmed memories for something to that effect and came up lacking. Neither did Gavin seem to know what Carpenter was talking about, but he nodded all the same, “Maybe I recall something to that effect. What about it?”

“They never found any bodies. Just an empty fishing boat floating around Lake Michigan. All their stuff still aboard, all their bags still packed. Nothing out of place, like a drink sitting out on the table or anything. But then van Rijn starts talking about what a tragedy it is that they had drowned, and overnight that becomes the whole narrative. Everybody at those Org parties, high on red ice and pontificating about whether drowning is a peaceful way to go or not. It was fucking ghoulish.”

“Surely there was a police inquest into the deaths,” RK said. “Do you have any idea which department investigated them?”

“Yeah,” Carpenter replied. “It was the private security at van Rijn’s compound. The one where he holds all his retreats. Those two were there that weekend, and it wasn’t for boating. I know something happened to them, and I know it’s the Org’s fault.”

That seemed to be the extent of the information Carpenter was willing or able to give them. RK was not sure how to proceed without anything more concrete, and he glanced to Gavin for guidance; however, it seemed that Gavin did not have much to offer. He was drinking the coffee Carpenter had given him, perhaps to delay having to answer him, and looking pensive.

“You don’t believe me,” Carpenter muttered. “God, why did I think this time was going to be any different?”

Gavin lowered the mug of coffee slowly to the counter. “I believe you. None of the shit these rich guys do surprises me. But I can’t make a case based on this. You need to give me more.”

“I don’t…” Carpenter trailed off, looking away.

Before RK’s eyes, Gavin’s demeanor changed. His expression softened, and his posture became loose and lithe. In an instant, his entire bearing had become accommodating, even inviting. As if he would permit liberties to be taken, as absurd as RK knew that to be.

All at once, he thought of Connor, and the way he had folded himself into Markus’ arms, becoming small and vulnerable at will. At the time, it had struck RK as an intolerable performance, something so inauthentic and ungenuine as to be painful to watch. It had also seemed like a skill unique to Connor, a permutation of his distinctly broken code. 

Now, though, RK had to admit he was watching Gavin do something very similar: contort himself into a new shape at will. Transmute himself into a different form, one specifically designed to invoke the desired reaction in Mr. Carpenter.

“Come on, Chet,” Gavin said, his voice low. It sounded as if he were speaking to draw Carpenter into a conspiracy. “Help me out here. You’re not the only one who’s willing to flip on them. I already have another witness. She can’t do what you can for me, though.”

Carpenter swallowed hard. He clearly had a knot forming in his throat. RK thought he might be feeling something similar.

“That’s all I know,” Carpenter said. “But there are other people the Org has pissed off. Even Kamski, you know. He’s not really one of them.”

“Who else?” Gavin coaxed.

“Jordan Elliott,” Carpenter said instantly. “He did a bunch of work on the original android hardware. I haven’t seen him around in a few years, but he and van Rijn used to be tight. And there’s a lady, too. Alyssa Seok. She was a receptionist at CyberLife, and she used to get invited to all the Org parties. She was pretty cute, and she knew how to work the rich guys. That can never last, though. She’ll definitely talk to you.”

“Jordan Elliott, Alyssa Seok, Elijah Kamski.” Gavin listed the names by way of confirmation. “Anybody else?”

“I can call you if I think of more,” Carpenter replied. Again, that elastic, exaggerated expression. That desire for approval.

Gavin took out his phone and retrieved one of his cards from under the case. “Sure,” he said, handing it over. “Do that.”

Carpenter’s hand lingered in taking the card, and Gavin allowed it to. That was part of it, RK thought. Gavin had lured his hand there. It was preamble. 

RK hoped his cheeks did not look as hot as they felt. He could barely concentrate on their parting pleasantries beyond an awareness that they were conducted in the same tone. When Gavin turned to leave, he did so making his own hand into an approximation of a landline telephone receiver and put it to his ear. “Call me,” he said, to Carpenter, in that same low voice. RK did not know why, but he knew he strode out of the room without saying anything, in part because he hoped he would not accidentally say something else without intent. 

“Bye!” Carpenter called after them. He sounded slightly embarrassed, as if he had once again remembered that RK was there, but RK did not turn around to check. 

Gavin caught up with him in the entryway, and shot a probing look at him before beating him to the door. He held it open for RK. An odd gesture. There was deference to it, as if he knew RK had been made uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable. He had no idea what he was feeling, only that it crackled through him, and was strong in intensity, but he could see that Gavin was aware of it. They did not speak as they crossed the driveway to the car.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who prefer to know in advance, there's some very frank but not-at-all-graphic discussion of homophobia and sexual assault in the second half of this chapter.

“That couldn’t have gone better,” Gavin said, when RK had begun to pull the car out onto the street again. “He basically confirmed everything you were thinking. Holy shit, RK. You had a really good hunch.”

RK did not answer him. He concentrated on the road. The streets were largely clear - residents in this area certainly were unlikely to tolerate unaddressed snow build up, RK thought - but that did not mean he could be incautious. 

Gavin was still talking. He was energetic, almost manic. Excited about his investigative success, no doubt. “We’ve got three names to go on, we’ve got some actual creepy crimes we can absolutely pursue. Fuck. He sang like a canary.” 

RK still had not answered, and it seemed that Gavin was beginning to notice. He continued to talk as he had been, but his gaze had slipped over to RK’s now, in the mirror. Checking. “I was not expecting that, though. Some kind of brogrammer cult. Weird. I wonder if there’s anything on the internet about it. What was it called again? The Org, right? Stupid name. They should have asked the MLM guys. Cult Sense. Lula Cult.”

RK did not respond to the tone or to the references. Brogrammers, that was what Markus had called them. “Yes, it was called the Org.” 

Gavin’s eyes narrowed suspiciously in the mirror. With that expression, they looked like thin slivers of flint. “Dying to know what they’re up to,” he said. 

“I am more concerned by the suspicion of homicide,” RK told him. “That hardly seems cause for elation.” 

“Okay,” Gavin said. “What did I do?” 

RK did not know how to answer that. “You did not do anything I would not have expected you to do.” 

“Hoo boy,” Gavin said. “I was about to ask if you were having another hunch, but you’re pissed at me, aren’t you. I can tell you are. You’d better tell me why.” 

“I am not,” RK told him, firmly and exactingly, “‘pissed’ at you in any way.” 

“He was kind of rude to you, is that it? I get that, RK. I’d have called him on it again but he would have stopped talking. I’m sorry, though.” 

Gavin’s earnestness, no doubt triggered by his slight mania, made RK regret the impression he was giving. He fought to assemble his feelings into order. “He was not particularly rude. I interpreted his comments about androids to be intended as sincere.” 

“Oh yeah, definitely a well meaning liberal fella. That can be worse sometimes though. I get it.” 

“I did not have a problem with Mr. Carpenter’s comments or behavior.” 

Gavin thinned his lips. “Okay. So then what?” 

RK did not want to answer. Not only because he did not know how he possibly could. Even the shape of his feeling seemed unwarranted. And more than that, foolishly personal. But Gavin was waiting for him to speak. And, it seemed, would not stop glaring at him in the mirror until he did. 

RK faced the road again. “I found your manner of interrogation to be… somewhat unorthodox.” 

He desperately wanted to observe Gavin’s reaction. He thought it would clarify things. He also knew he could not and should not look at him. He could hear him moving. 

But Gavin’s tone, when he spoke, had an undercurrent of low amusement in it. “You mean how I flirted with him?” 

Was that what he had been doing? “That is not, perhaps, standard procedure.” 

“It worked, didn’t it?” 

RK could not deny that it had. He wanted to ask if it was at all genuine. If Gavin had meant what he’d done and said. If he ever meant it. If he did that with everyone. But he did not ask. 

“Give me a break, Mr. Darcy,” Gavin said, in response to his silence. “I’m 37 years old. If my milkshake can still bring the boys to the yard… Well, I’d teach you, but I’d have to charge.” 

RK did not have the faintest idea how to answer that. Gavin did not need him to anyway. The highway approached them almost immediately and RK began to turn towards it. “Wait!” Gavin said, abruptly. “Hang a left. I’m starving, and Mr. Platinum Likes Award put Wendy’s in my brain.” 

RK did so without question. He could feel that Gavin was looking at him again. He wanted to look back but also felt that he did not dare. 

“Don’t judge me,” Gavin said. “You don’t even eat.” 

“I am not judging you.”

“Good, because I’m judging myself plenty. Jesus, I have to get serious about my macros one of these days. Head right,” Gavin said, evidently navigating from his phone. 

RK did as he was instructed. Almost immediately, they were surrounded by suburban strip mall, and RK could see the Wendy’s restaurant that Gavin was leading them to. He drove towards it. 

“I guess it must be weird for you,” Gavin said, suddenly. “Androids probably don’t flirt. I was going to ask if you guys can even get turned on, but that’s a stupid, personal question.” 

It was certainly one RK couldn’t answer. But some small strange part of him responded with such relief at Gavin’s reflexiveness. Gavin might solicit other people’s hands, but RK had gotten the impression that this kind of musing talk was for the two of them alone. “I am certainly not programmed to, as you put it, flirt. I cannot imagine I would have your skill at it.” 

Gavin looked startled. “Oh…” he said, out loud, as if RK had not just spoken but instead physically reached out and touched him in an unexpected but not unpleasant way.

He recovered in a moment. “Well, don’t worry. You can be my wingman. Wing-bot.” He gestured vaguely. “Just go through the drive thru, okay?”

RK did as he had been instructed, guiding the vehicle up to the menu board. The restaurant was quiet and there were no other cars in line; it seemed that few humans wished to eat sandwiches comprised of multiple meats prior to 10:00 am on a weekday. A mechanical voice solicited their order; RK turned to consult with Gavin, but before he could Gavin had undone his seatbelt and slid across the center console. He leaned over RK’s body so he could talk into the speaker, and for a moment his hip was pressed against RK’s hip, his arm was resting against RK’s chest. 

There was a sensation of static. Not a sound, but a feeling that welled up inside him, filling his head with a not-unpleasant buzzing. His sensors lit up, all of them attuned to the warm animal presence poised against his body. He could smell Gavin’s hair. Leather, sandalwood. And something else, verdant and green.

Of course, they had been this close before. They had touched each other before. RK had not experienced this then; he was sure of that.

Gavin placed his order and leaned back in his seat. RK moved automatically, guiding them up to a window where a tired-looking employee accepted the payment from Gavin’s phone and handed them a paper sack that glistened with grease.

RK felt like he was in a daze as he pulled back out and headed towards the highway. He was aware that Gavin was saying, “Look, I’m being good. I’m not messing up your car.” But it was muted, as if RK’s receptors had been wrapped in a layer of gauze.

Gavin ate in silence beside him for a few minutes, as RK found the entrance to the highway once more.

Abruptly, Gavin spoke again. “Hey, just so you know, that Chet guy isn’t my type at all. Unemployed brand ambassador… Jesus, can you imagine having to tell people that’s what the person you’re hanging out with does for a living?”

RK wanted to ask why, if that were the case, Gavin had determined that it was appropriate to flirt with Mr. Carpenter. He stopped himself before he did so, though. “I did not presume anything about your preferences,” he said instead.

Gavin was still watching him out of the corner of his eye. It seemed like he had not finished speaking, but he was evaluating whether or not he should go on. RK’s first impulse was to wait and let Gavin make the decision based on his own analysis of the situation, but he did not want to.

When Gavin had been silent for several long seconds, RK said, “What is it?”

He heard his own voice when he spoke. It was low, but not low like Gavin’s had been when he applied his skill at flirting to the interview with Chet Carpenter. Rather, RK could detect a soft note of concern permeating the words.

“Not that I’m not into guys,” Gavin said. He was still watching RK closely, warily. “Just not guys like that. And not guys exclusively.”

He brought himself to a halt, then he shook his head. “Shit, that was a lot of “not”s. I’m bisexual, is what I’m saying. It’s not a big deal. Everyone already knows. I just figured you should too. So you can have context if anyone ever says something.”

RK was aware that Gavin had been made uncomfortable by the confession, though he did not know precisely why. Likely, it was strange to share personal information with an android, he surmised, and he set about searching his conversational matrix for the appropriate response. To his annoyance, RK could find nothing precisely suitable. However, Gavin was clearly waiting for him to say something, and RK had nothing forthcoming but honesty.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I do appreciate the context. And knowing more about you.”

Gavin’s expression relaxed. A smile played at the corners of his mouth, but did not form completely. He reached into the paper sack and retrieved a smaller bag of fried potatoes. “Well, there you go, then. That whole ritual never gets any less awkward, though.” 

“I do not understand why it should be awkward,” RK said. “It is an established scientific fact that human sexuality exists on a spectrum.”

This time Gavin did smile. It seemed genuine, but there was an emotion that was decidedly not amusement flickering in the pits of his gray eyes. “If that’s what you think, then let’s leave it at that. Just promise me one thing, RK.”

“Of course. Anything.”

“I know it’s kind of one of your Laws of Robotics to defend me, but if anyone ever says anything about _that_ , I want you to leave it alone, okay? That’s my battle to fight, not yours.”

“If that is what you want, I will respect your wishes,” RK replied, but he was aware that he was frowning. He couldn’t help it. Gavin had implied that someone might, in the future, say something that was _not_ immediate acceptance of an unalterable fact about his biology. 

Had that happened before? At the precinct where they worked? RK thought of the other officers and employees he had met there. Many of them had not seemed pleased to be working with an android, but they had been tolerant of RK’s presence, at least. Could one of them have said something to Gavin in the past? Something flagrant enough that he had felt it prudent to warn RK about it?

RK was aware he could not ask any of those questions. Gavin had told him to avoid the subject, and he had promised that he would. There was another question, though. One that he had not thought to address earlier, but that had taken on a new resonance in light of the information Gavin had just shared.

“May I make one additional inquiry?” RK said. “It pertains to your interactions with Mr. Carpenter.”

Gavin laughed. It was a relief to hear it. “Please don’t ask me to explain flirting. Sorry, RK, moves like those just can’t be taught.”

“It was before that. When he mentioned living in Los Angeles. You had a strange reaction to something he said. It seemed averse.”

Gavin did not answer right away. It looked like he was thinking over what to say, but he was silent for long enough that RK began to feel the old familiar frustration creeping in. Another mistake, then. He would learn from it.

“You noticed that, huh?” Gavin said at last.

“I’m sorry--”

“No, no,” Gavin told him quickly. “It’s okay. It’s just… Look.” He indicated a green sign on the side of the road. “There’s a rest area coming up. Why don’t we pull over and I’ll tell you, all right?”

RK proceeded another mile, and then pulled off on the ramp that led to a nearly-empty parking lot. The rest area was composed of a cluster of picnic tables tucked under evergreens laden heavily with snow. Despite the proximity to the highway, the trees gave the illusion of great stillness and silence. 

Once RK had pulled into a parking space and cut the engine, Gavin leaned back in his seat and sighed.

“I didn’t mean to get all weird like that,” he said. “I thought I played it off all right, but it figures you would notice.”

“I apologize if you found my noticing intrusive.”

“No, you’re fine.” 

Gavin hesitated again. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and he seemed to be choosing the best way to begin speaking. Somehow, he also looked as if he were squaring up to fight. As if RK’s question were his opponent and he had to figure out a way to wrestle it into submission.

“Do you know what he was getting at?” Gavin asked at last. “When he talked about his agent, I mean.”

RK thought back to the conversation, replaying Carpenter’s words in his mind. “I believe he was insinuating that his agent behaved inappropriately towards him. It would be necessary to confirm their respective ages at the time, but it seems to imply that Mr. Carpenter was a victim of statutory rape.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said. “That’s what I got too. He really put it all out there, didn’t he? That took some guts, I gotta admit.”

“If the crime was committed in Los Angeles, it is out of our jurisdiction. We cannot pursue it.”

“That’s why we're focusing on what we can do here,” Gavin replied. “I didn’t react to it because it was a crime. What tripped my wire was how he said it.”

That seemed to imply that Carpenter had somehow offended Gavin’s sense of professionalism, or perhaps justice, by so firmly insisting that what had happened to him was not criminal. But Gavin’s reaction had not seemed like that. It hadn’t been considered, not at all. Instead it had seemed involuntary and animalistic in a way that was far more individual. There was an echo of it now in Gavin’s posture, in his far-away eyes. 

A terrible thought occurred to RK. He wondered if he should give it voice. But Gavin interrupted him before he could. 

“I wasn’t touched by a priest or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.” 

The way he said it gave RK a start. There was an edge of bitterness to it that seemed to come from nowhere. He should definitely say something to that, RK thought, but the most he could manage was, “I beg your pardon?” 

Gavin shook his head. “You probably weren’t thinking that. Sorry. People just really love to insinuate when they find out you grew up Catholic. It’s like the one thing they know about the church or something. Dodgy priests. Which, okay, fine, we got ‘em. But they think it’s appropriate to ask about it when they’ve just met you, which, uh, it is fucking not.”

RK’s repository contained enough in the way of criminal history that he understood Gavin’s reference. There were a lot of sexual abuse cases against Catholic clergy, he found, as he sorted through them. Too many. 

“It’s like when people ask you the most fucked up thing you’ve seen as a cop,” Gavin continued. He seemed angry. But he was angry in the direction of the rest area and not towards RK. It was clear he meant his next words to be spoken to a hypothetical third party. “You don’t want to fucking know, asshole, and I don’t want to tell you.” 

RK considered saying something then, but found he did not want to disturb Gavin’s train of thought. It would not be necessary to prompt him, Gavin had volunteered this conversation. Further, RK had no intention of criticizing him if he found he preferred not to continue it. If anything, he was tempted to tell him that instead. 

“It’s the way he talked,” Gavin said. He turned his face to RK’s, and RK could see something desperate in it. The fight with his opponent was not going his way. “Like it was just some kind of inevitable bad luck. Like if you commit the sin of wanting to make stupid meme videos then you’ve got it coming if somebody rapes you. He defended it. That fucks me up.” 

He still seemed to be struggling to explain himself. “But the thing is, I get why he did. Nobody would have done anything if he’d told them,” he went on. “He’d just have been out of a job. Those guys are in charge. You can’t change anything. Everybody would have just worked around the problem.” 

He was hunched in on himself now. Shoulders tense, brows furrowed, facial expression collapsing towards the middle of his face as if there was a well of gravity inside him. RK thought he could feel that gravity too, as if somehow it was pulling his own body. He had wanted to step in front of Gavin then, and he wanted, in some way, to do it now. He thought if he had not intentionally folded his hands into his lap, they might have moved of their own accord. 

“Nothing bad happened to me,” Gavin said. It sent a shock through the middle of RK’s chest. Gavin said it as if he was furiously insisting it, chastizing himself, and RK felt that as if it hurt and the pull of Gavin’s internal weight became quickly and relentlessly stronger. 

He did not want to prompt. He did not want to probe or pressure. He thought perhaps that was a cowardly impulse - “you don’t want to know, and I don’t want to tell you,” Gavin had said, and RK did not want to risk the anxiety of offending him. But Gavin had asked if RK was okay, and RK had not wanted to answer. And then it had turned out that he had wanted to. 

The car had become very silent. It was possible that Gavin was expecting RK to speak, but he was not giving that impression. Instead he seemed lost in himself. Far away again. RK was struck, suddenly, by the image of his palm in Gavin’s hand again and that strange thought he had had about it: that Gavin had been anchoring RK into the world. 

“Gavin,” RK said, and was momentarily aware of the strange sound the name had in his mouth. It seemed powerful to use it, and evidently Gavin thought so too, because he looked up. Startled. As if he’d forgotten to make an expression. 

RK pushed forward. “If there is something it would help you to discuss with me, I will listen without judgment. I will not share the information with anyone else.” 

Gavin’s mouth pulled itself into a strange, tight smile. It was small, and the expression around it was weary. But, RK thought, also fond. “That’s not it,” he said. “I promise. I’ve got my own stuff, but none of it’s that. But for what it’s worth, I believe you.” 

RK had no idea why that should induce such feeling in him, but it did. Connor, he thought, would have dropped his eyes. Ducked his head. RK did not do that. He was not built that way. Instead, he kept his gaze level with Gavin’s eyes. “Then perhaps I do not understand.” 

That tight smile formed again. “Linda calls it a missing stair,” Gavin said, and it was clearly meant as an explanation. “It’s from something she read, it’s an analogy. I don’t know, I’m not super into that social justice talk but I get what she means.” 

“A missing stair,” RK repeated. “Please explain?” 

The smile had become a little longer. “So there’s a fucked up person. Someone like Chet’s agent, someone who’s doing something he shouldn’t. And everybody knows. But nobody does anything, and it’s like a staircase and a stair is missing but people don’t fix it. They just tell you, hey, there’s a stair missing. Don’t forget to step over it. If you fall in the hole, it’s your fucking problem. We did our due diligence warning you. We told you there’s a missing stair.”

RK was struck by the fact he could picture that in his mind. How curious that an analogy about a staircase could be so clarifying. He wanted to ask Gavin if he meant that he, Gavin, had at some point fallen in the hole. 

“I’ve just seen a few missing stairs,” Gavin said, uncannily, as if he was reading RK’s thoughts the same way he’d read his palm. “That’s all it was. He reminded me.” 

The phrase “that’s all it was” seemed incongruent with both the subject matter and the fact that Gavin had asked for them to pull over specifically to have this conversation. “I appreciate your explanation.” 

“But?” Gavin said. 

“Excuse me?” 

“It just seems like there’s a but.” 

There was, and RK had said it before he could regulate it. “But I am concerned you have minimized your own experiences.”

Gavin made that same weary, fond expression. RK felt himself responding to it, felt his chest grow heavy and hot. It was resignation that Gavin should not feel, and he wanted to tell him that. Gavin was impossibly small. Impossibly organic. It should not be so that such a defenseless animal should have to navigate the world that way, at the same time as meeting potential unkindnesses. Any creature would have to form what armor it could in that position. That was not fair.

“Didn’t,” Gavin said. “Hey, RK….” 

He had trailed off because RK had moved. RK had not intended to move. It had happened as an automatic reaction and he had not thought about it at all. But his body had shifted so that he was between Gavin and the windscreen and his hand was an inch from Gavin’s hand. 

As soon as he became aware, he froze. 

He had frightened Gavin, RK could see that. A startle response was evident in his Gavin’s pupils, which were wide and black. Only a thin gray iris around them. RK had made a mistake, he thought. Another mistake. He was going to keep making them. He should not have moved in the first instance, and he should have moved back into his seat immediately upon recognizing that. 

He could not move back. He was stuck there. 

“You okay, buddy?” Gavin asked him, in a soft, cautious voice. The fear seemed to have left his face, for the most part. RK thought he could even detect a tinge of concern. 

In desperation, he flipped his palm up, out. “I am reliably informed it is a faux pas to leave someone hanging.”

After a moment or two - RK could not have said how long, he felt it in relative time - Gavin’s expression adjusted and he snorted in his familiar way. He shook his head. And then he smiled. Really smiled. The weariness had not entirely left it, but it was clearly very genuine. 

It was also filled with something warm. Like wonder, RK thought. He slapped his palm against RK’s. 

“Okay, weirdo,” he said, after a second. “Up top.” 

He kept his palm out, but he lifted it higher, level with his face. He indicated with his head that RK should slap it again. RK did so. 

Gavin’s smile had receded by now, but it was not entirely gone. He watched RK’s eyes for a moment, searching them. Did he notice what color they were? Would he have mentioned it if he had? 

“Take me home, okay?” Gavin said, tucking his hand back into his pocket. “Or back to work I guess. We’ve got shit to do.Take us back there.”

RK’s body was nothing but static again. He hoped the hotness in his cheeks was not visible, that his expression remained neutral. He was grateful for the direction. He started the car.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are coming a little slower than usual, I know. HW is back in the office after a period working from home, and I'm starting a new job + planning an international move, so we haven't been able to write Gavin and RK flirting full time like we would like (and deserve!) to. They're seriously about to hook up though, I swear. It's going to be awesome.

It was mid-day when they arrived back at the precinct. Gavin had, it seemed, been fortified by the significant amount of empty fast food calories he had consumed, and he had a plan in mind. 

“I want to move fast on this,” he told RK in the elevator. “Get our shit together before Mia’s arraignment. But I want to keep it quiet, too. Need-to-know only, all right?”

“Yes, I understand.” If it was indeed a conspiracy they had stumbled upon, it was one that concerned powerful people. It was best for everyone involved if they proceeded with caution for the time being.

Gavin was looking at him out of the corner of his eye, RK realized. He seemed to want to say something, but also not want to say it. As the elevator approached their floor, he spoke up, and RK thought he could understand why he had been hesitant.

“Hey, no offense, but this investigation is going to be safe with you, right? I’m not saying you’ll go and spill everything to CyberLife at the first opportunity. At least not on purpose. I’m just thinking…”

He trailed off, scowled. It seemed that he did not know precisely what he was thinking, other than that he did not like it.

“You know what?” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I understand your concern,” RK replied. He had not considered it before, but it seemed to him now that Gavin had introduced a valid reason to be worried. It was better to be honest about these things: Where he had come from, and what he was.

RK attempted to explain. “I do not have any personal loyalty to CyberLife. However, any data we collect throughout the course of this investigation will be retained in my local storage, which is legally property of the company. Without the neural net, they have few options to reclaim it remotely, but they may have resources that I am unaware of. You are right to be cautious, in fact. If you would prefer that I recuse myself from this investigation, I will understand.”

The elevator stopped at their floor. Gavin leaned over and held his thumb down on the button that held the doors closed. He kept it there for a long moment, while he thought.

“No,” he said at last. “Your hunch, your case. I trust you. Just keep me in the loop, okay? And… don’t let them take your brain without a fight.”

That seemed to satisfy Gavin, and he took his finger off the elevator button. The door sprang open, and RK was confronted with a pair of annoyed-looking uniformed officers who had clearly been waiting.

Gavin brushed past them without acknowledging the inconvenience he had caused. He was talking fast now, but low, and RK had to walk briskly to stay close enough to hear.

“Let’s divide and conquer,” he said. “I’ll go update Fowler, then I’m going to poke around and see if I can’t find anything about that boating accident Chet mentioned. Even if there’s nothing in police records, I got some sources I can lean on. Why don’t you see what you can find out about those three names he gave us?”

“I am familiar with Elijah Kamski already,” RK said. “I do not know the name Alyssa Soek, but if she was a low-level employee, that is unsurprising. What is curious to me is the man he mentioned. Jordan Elliott. Mr. Carpenter implied that he was a fairly prominent product designer. If that is true, then it’s curious that he does not seem to appear in any official CyberLife records.”

“So start there,” Gavin said. “But look into all of them. Even Kamski.”

“Understood,” RK replied.

They parted ways at their desks. Gavin headed towards Fowler’s office, and RK sat down at his computer and began his research. 

Gavin had told him to pursue all leads, which RK might have taken to mean that he did not agree Jordan Elliott was the best place to start the investigation. However, RK had an unshakable impression that there was something associated with that name. It was an unpleasant sensation, and all the more so because it did not seem to be rooted in anything concrete.

Another hunch, RK thought. Absurd to let such things guide a logical investigation, and yet more absurd to not pursue them when they arose.

There was nothing in the police databases about Elliott. He had never been arrested, interviewed, or reported a crime. RK moved on to reliable news sources. There, he had more luck. Though Elliott had a clean record, he did not lack a public profile.

RK was encouraged by what he’d found, until he began to sort through the stories and discovered that the newest was nearly a decade old. After that, Elliott seemed to disappear entirely. There was a chance that he had changed careers, or devoted his efforts to the Org. It might have been something else entirely, though.

Curious, RK skimmed through several of the articles at random. They breathlessly documented the meteoric rise of a startup out of the University of Colbridge, one that was advancing the field of AI exponentially. This was a history RK had been created knowing: Elijah Kamski was the singular mind behind the project, the engine driving the creation of modern androids.

And yet, that was not the story the articles told.

Instead, they spoke of a partnership. Between a programmer and a roboticist that he had recruited to design the perfect vessel for his perfect intelligence. They interviewed together, promoted the new technology together, were photographed together. In every picture, Kamski looked unkempt and sullen in jeans and a rumpled black shirt, while Elliott was taller, more conventionally handsome. Tan and solidly-built, with blue eyes and a shock of jet-black hair. Always dressed impeccably in a fitted suit and tie. He was inclined to speak to the media almost as often as Kamski was inclined to stay quiet.

Then, one day, he was gone.

The disappearance puzzled RK. There was no mention of Elliott leaving the project, amicably or otherwise. The Chloe prototype he had designed went into production largely unchanged from his original vision.

A quick search of public records did not turn up Elliott’s current whereabouts. It was certainly possible to hide one's location from the authorities as long as one had sufficient money and resources. Still, the abrupt disappearance troubled RK. It made him think of an empty boat with packed suitcases aboard, found floating on Lake Michigan. He could not shake the image from his mind, though he forced himself to refocus on the clues that he had.

Perhaps one of the other witnesses that Carpenter had mentioned would know more. RK turned his attention to Alyssa Soek next, though as he had expected there was relatively little information on her. Apparently, she had left CyberLife at some point, because he found a record of her teaching at one of the city’s community colleges. An investigation of her bio on the school’s website turned up a photo of a slim, attractive woman in her late-20s, of East Asian descent. Her hair was scraped back in a tight bun, which made her look, to RK’s eyes, rather serious and severe.

There was little useful information in her bio. It mentioned a postgraduate degree in computer science, and that Ms. Soek had contributed to several textbooks on coding for VR. However, tracking her down proved to be much easier than locating Jordan Elliott. The college listed her office hours. They would be able to find her the next day if they decided to pursue her as a witness.

That left Kamski, then. Gavin had warned him not to take his programmed memories as truth, and RK could now see the wisdom in that advice. He had assumed the data that composed his base repository of knowledge would consist only of established and indisputable facts, the building blocks which he would need to draw reasoned conclusions about the world. However, in light of what he had learned about Jordan Elliott and the way he had been so completely erased from the official record, RK was now reluctant to trust anything that he believed about the time prior to his activation.

It was certainly not an ideal circumstance, but RK felt oddly calm in the face of it. He had been active for only 17 days, but he knew that what had happened in that time was real. It was the truth. Knowing that, he knew exactly what - and who - he could trust, and how he ought to proceed.

He had not expected to find Kamski’s name in the department database, but it was there. He had been interviewed last year, during an investigation into the initial wave of deviant androids. The report the attending officer had filed was singularly terse, singularly unhelpful. Kamski, it seemed, had been as puzzled by the phenomenon as everyone else.

RK took note of the names at the top of the report. Connor had been in attendance. Of course, he would have had to get there first. He had not been alone at the interview, though. There was another name next to his, one that RK registered as sounding familiar. Yes, he had certainly heard it before.

He stole a glance in the direction of Lieutenant Anderson’s desk. The detective was in his seat, as he generally was since his return from unspecified medical leave had necessitated his reassignment to desk duty. It did not seem he enjoyed his new role in the department, but he performed his duties with reasonable diligence and very little complaint.

RK tried to remember if Connor had ever mentioned his partnership with Lieutenant Anderson. In passing, perhaps, but in general he had been characteristically quiet on the subject.

There was no sense sitting around and waiting for information from Connor that was not forthcoming, RK determined. He ought to have approached Lieutenant Anderson without hesitation and asked him to expand on his report, and yet RK did not. Only a few days ago, he would have done so without a second thought, but now something within held him back. A new kind of uncertainty, one he could not have imagined before.

Now, more than ever, he was keenly aware that he did not know the first thing about humans. But now, more than ever, did it seem vitally important that he find a way to understand them.

Registering it as an illogical impulse even as he did it, RK glanced in the direction of Captain Fowler’s office. It was there that Gavin had disappeared after dividing the work of the investigation. RK half expected to spot him returning, as if in response to RK’s distress, but he was nowhere to be seen.

No, it was not his duty to be there at that moment. Gavin’s duty was the same as RK’s: to investigate criminal activity. Remembering that steadied him, and RK stood to approach Lieutenant Anderson’s desk.

“Pardon me,” he said.

Lieutenant Anderson looked up sharply. His expression cycled rapidly through a series of complex emotions when he saw RK standing there, before settling on a kind of slight irritation at being disturbed. “Who the hell are you?”

“My name is RK.”

Hank seemed to be waiting for more. He was silent for a split second, expectant. But when RK said nothing, he shook off whatever had distracted him and said, “Sure. Of course. The liaison.”

“That is correct,” RK said. “I had hoped I could trouble you for some information, concerning an interview you conducted last year.” 

Lieutenant Anderson raked his eyes over RK again. Top to bottom, taking him all in. It was not quick and animalistic the way Gavin would do it. This was seasoned. Investigative. Whatever conclusion he’d come to about RK, he was choosing not to share it. More human secrets.

“If I can help you, I will,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Shoot.” 

“During initial investigations of deviating androids, you interviewed Elijah Kamski, the former CEO of CyberLife. Your report is not extensive. It would help me if you could expand upon what you have written.” 

“What I wrote was what I got. He didn’t know anything.” 

“Perhaps not,” RK said. “But you have not detailed the particular questions you asked, or elaborated upon how he answered them. Perhaps there is something I could glean from those details.”

“Why do you want to know?” Lieutenant Anderson asked him. “Not like deviant androids are a pressing current investigation.” 

“He has been named as a possible source of information in my current investigation. It would help me to know what to expect.” 

“You’re following up on that nerd party, right?” Lieutenant Anderson said, narrowing his eyes. “Was he there?” 

“We believe so.”

“Let it go,” Anderson said, abruptly. “You don’t want to talk to him. Take my advice.” 

RK felt the answer in his chest. The hot feeling of frustration. It did not make sense that it should bother him so much to hear that. Anderson said it so firmly, as if it were intended to discipline him. 

He corrected himself, and tried again. “The witness we interviewed this morning mentioned him by name. It will be necessary to follow that lead. I do not intend to simply ‘let go’ an active investigation.” 

“Not the whole case. Just him. Trust me, keep away from that guy. Connor…” 

For a moment, RK thought Anderson had mistakenly addressed him as Connor. The way he stopped speaking as soon as saying the name initially gave that impression. Then RK understood that that was not the case, and was able to manage his indignation. Anderson had been about to tell RK something _about_ Connor, but then had decided not to. Unfortunately, that prompted an indignation of a different kind. 

“Connor was present at your interview,” RK said, evenly. 

“Did he say anything to you about it?” Anderson asked him. “I don’t know if you know him. I didn’t want to assume.”

RK understood then that Lieutenant Anderson was carefully avoiding comment on their similar appearances. He was, in fact, very intentionally not asking about the relationship he and Connor might have. RK might have assumed he did this out of some misguided human sense of politeness, but paying attention to Anderson’s tone, RK thought it was something else. It sounded as if Anderson was trying to keep back information about Connor. To protect him, as if Connor needed that. As if reflexive protection was what Connor, without fail, elicited. 

“I am not sure why Connor would discuss a routine interview with me,” RK said. “Are you suggesting that your report is not extensive because something transpired that you did not record? And that it concerns Connor’s conduct?” 

“I didn’t say that,” Anderson said. “I just… look, he’s a creep. Kamski. He said some things to Connor that were wildly out of line, and I wouldn’t trust him not to do it to you too.” 

The missing stair, RK thought, suddenly. And then it was all he could think about. He could see it, as if it were physical, as if the staircase were real, and that was precisely what was happening here. Anderson was doing his due diligence by warning RK about the hole. He was also telling RK it would be impossible to fix it, and that he should not try. That whatever Kamski had done, he would be allowed to keep doing. 

That was not fair. And Anderson was implying that it should remain unfair. Something about this train of thought seemed to summon the staticky feeling he had when Gavin had asked him, if he still thought that they should have pressed to see Mia charged. That was not his focus currently and pushed his thoughts about it aside, but the infuriating sense of unfairness remained. 

“I will not be dissuaded from an investigation because a witness may make unkind comments,” RK said. He knew his voice was very firm, but he did not find himself moved to correct that. 

“It’s not ‘unkind comments’, Jesus. He tried to get Connor to… it was like a sick kid pulling wings off a fly. Just leave it alone.”

“None of this is in your report.” 

“Yeah, well,” Anderson said. 

“Why not?” 

“Because it wasn’t fucking relevant. Okay? I said I’d help you, and I am. I’m giving you the benefit of my experience: Don’t talk to Kamski.” 

“What did he say to Connor that you found so objectionable, specifically?” 

“You don’t want to know. Jesus, they couldn’t make one of you guys who would actually fucking listen to me?” 

Something about RK’s reaction must have been visible to Anderson, because his expression changed. It was clear he regretted what he’d said, and he shook his head. “Sorry.”

RK did not know how to answer. His protocol prompted him to reassure Lieutenant Anderson that he had not caused any offense, but he found he could not. He felt that his lips had thinned, that he was frowning. 

“Fuck,” Lieutenant Anderson said. “Look, you can ask Connor what happened. Maybe you should ask him. But please trust me that Kamski is not a good guy for you to be talking to.” 

Again and again, it would always come back to this. Connor would share information if he chose to and at no other time, and it seemed he would never choose to, and everybody seemed to find this acceptable. RK knew he was ruminating on this, fixating more than he needed to, but was finding it difficult to dismiss the thoughts. 

Lieutenant Anderson evidently noticed that as well, even if he perhaps did not know exactly what RK was thinking about. “Reed treating you okay?” he asked, in a voice that sounded, RK thought, approximately kind, if a little strained in being so. 

His head shot up at it. Sure enough, Anderson was looking at him as if he wanted to hear the answer. “Detective Reed has been more than professional.” 

“That’s good to hear. Don’t take any shit from him.” 

The insinuation that he should be wary of Gavin in particular bothered RK more than anything else Lieutenant Anderson had said. Gavin had not been withholding information from him, or mistrusting him.

He could hear his voice getting firm again. “There has not been any, as you put it, shit to take, thank you, Lieutenant.” 

“Yeah? Well, good news.” 

RK wanted to argue with that, to correct whatever erroneous impression of Gavin Lieutenant Anderson had formed. He thought carefully about how precisely to do it. 

Anderson cut him off before he could. “I mean it. If he’s behaving himself, I’m glad to hear it. I just want you to know that if you’re having problems, you’ve got friends.” 

RK was startled by that. Startled enough to forget to argue. It was clear Lieutenant Anderson meant “friends” to refer to himself, which was a very curious term for him to choose during their first conversation. Especially a conversation he had opened with “who the hell are you?” He meant allies, RK assumed, but that was strange too. There was no reason for Anderson to be invested in RK’s protection. Unless, RK supposed, it was simply due to his resemblance to Connor. That was the most likely reason. 

Anderson sighed. “The stuff that Kamski said...” he said. “Listen… there’s no need for me to be so cagey about it. I’m sorry. That’s a me issue, not a you issue.”

RK’s attention had been immediately focused. He did not need to amplify his hearing and so he did not, but he felt the impulse to anyway. The tone, the phrasing, all of it implied that Anderson had changed his mind, had decided for some reason to give RK some _actual information about the past_ , and every part of his awareness craned towards it. He was conscious that, once again, he should have provided some reassurance that Anderson did not need to apologize, but he could only focus. 

Anderson had also noticed RK’s stillness, it seemed. His voice grew quieter, as if he didn’t want to startle him. “He tricked Connor into proving he was a deviant,” Anderson said. “In the shittiest way you can imagine. That’s why I couldn’t put it in the report, it would have outed him. Connor, I mean.”

“You knew Connor was a deviant and kept this information from CyberLife?” 

“Guess the cat’s well and truly out of the bag on that one, huh?” 

RK registered that Anderson was making a joke. However, his body was roaring with static again and all he could manage was a repetition of his question. “You knew Connor was a deviant and kept this information from CyberLife?” 

“Connor didn’t even know,” Anderson said. “That was the fucked up thing about it. Connor didn’t even know what he’d done. But I sure did, and so would anyone who’d seen it. That would have meant deactivation. Kamski knew that and he didn’t care. It was just a thought experiment to him. A guy like that… he just takes pleasure in fucking with people.” 

Androids are not people, RK thought to say, but Anderson, it seemed, had that now-familiar but still eerie human ability to read his mind.

“And with androids, I don’t know. He can fuck with you. I guess he set it up that way.”

RK’s impulse was to press again. To point out that what Anderson had done in failing to report Connor was not only a breach of protocol, it was explicit misconduct. How many humans had made choices of this nature, had allowed deviants to move unapprehended, to spread? How many flawed human decisions had resulted in RK being where he was, right now, caught in a purposeless life he had never been intended to live? 

Connor should have been deactivated. He should have been deactivated long before there was a liberation. All of this could have been prevented. 

“I am already aware I am a deviant. That would not be a surprise to me,” he said, instead of anything that he was thinking. 

“Makes you seriously stop and think about why he wanted to make androids in the first place,” Anderson said, in a low voice, like he wasn’t talking to RK anymore. “He had all of these Chloes. Those blonde ones. I guess human women said no too often. Jesus, what a creep.”

That was strange too. It seemed Connor had not been the only malfunctioning android to draw Anderson’s protective instincts. If the Chloe models had not been deviant, they would scarcely have been concerned about any demand from a human owner, no matter how unsavory it might appear. 

The thought was distasteful to him. And that did not make sense. It was not rational to apply concepts of human justice or safety to androids. But if they had been deviant, they would have felt it, just as RK could feel things, however much of a mistake that was. And Lieutenant Anderson was not describing a man who seemed particularly concerned either way. RK could not make himself step over that, no matter how logical it would have been to do so. 

Further, Connor would have felt his deactivation, however appropriate it would have been. And Anderson had understood that about Connor before Connor had understood it about himself. Was that what Anderson had meant by “friends”? RK could not step over that either. 

“Are you hearing what I’m saying?” Anderson said. “Stay the fuck away. Don’t let him get his creepy nerd fingers in your brain.” 

“I hear you,” RK replied. “I appreciate your concern, as misplaced as it may be.”

“But, let me guess? You’re going to do whatever you want anyway?”

RK did not reply right away. It seemed that he would have to eventually, and in the affirmative. All of Lieutenant Anderson’s warnings had only served to make it more vital that he interview Kamski. He knew something. If not about the Org, then about RK himself. At that moment, it seemed still more urgent that Kamski tell RK who he was, that he might be persuaded to share some of that private knowledge.

Before RK could even begin to formulate a reply, Gavin returned. He was frowning a little, not entirely pleased that he had come upon RK in conversation with Lieutenant Anderson, but he was careful to keep his tone even.

“What’s going on, RK?”

“He was asking me something about an old case,” Hank replied. The way he said it - quickly, before RK could speak - made RK wonder if he and Hank had not spoken about something illicit after all. He certainly seemed to want to keep the details from Gavin.

“Yes,” RK confirmed. “Regrettably, Lieutenant Anderson was not able to provide much help.”

“No surprise there,” Gavin said, but the insult was vague and without a sting. Even Lieutenant Anderson - a senior officer, RK realized with alarm - seemed less perturbed by it than slightly annoyed.

Gavin’s eyes darted between them, assessing the situation in an instant. Then he did something that struck RK as peculiar indeed: He leaned in, so close that they almost touched, and set a hand companionably on RK’s shoulder.

“Talking with Fowler is always a pain in the ass. He makes me so fucking tired, you know?” Gavin said it conspiratorially, as if he expected RK to understand something more from it, something beyond the literal.

Curiously, RK thought that he might.

“Perhaps a cup of coffee would refresh you?” he said.

Gavin’s eyes narrowed in pleasure. “That would be nice, come to think of it.”

“Allow me to fetch you one,” RK said. He turned his attention to Lieutenant Anderson. “Anything for you?”

Anderson seemed significantly less pleased by the offer. His eyes had thinned and his lips had compressed into a scowl. “I’m good.”

“Of course.” RK felt that something had shifted, and not in his favor. When he turned to head towards the kitchen, it had the distinct feeling of a retreat. His shoulders were straight and his carriage as erect as ever, but he felt as if he were bent defensively.

Gavin stayed behind. One eye remained on RK’s retreating back, but as soon as he had judged that RK was far enough away, he began to speak to Lieutenant Anderson in a low voice. RK could have amplified his hearing and listened to their conversation, but he did not. There might have been any number of things that two humans would talk about in his absence, and RK did not want to debase himself by eavesdropping on any of them.

RK made his mind a deliberate blank, focusing only on retrieving the cup of coffee. He poured it into a mug emblazoned with the DPD shield - in addition to a charger, Gavin never seemed to have his own coffee cup - and turned back.

He froze. Gavin was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, watching him.

“Thanks,” he said, stepping forward to pluck the cup out of RK’s hand. He sipped it, then he looked at RK slyly over the rim of the cup. “You make a damn fine cup of coffee, RK.”

“I only poured it,” RK informed him.

Gavin tilted his head towards the table pushed into the corner. “Have a seat?”

RK joined him, though it occurred to him as he did that a not-insignificant portion of his time lately had been spent watching Gavin consume various substances. He did not mind that. Though it was an inefficient use of his time as an android, it seemed to RK that things were accomplished during these particular interludes. Moreover, he looked forward to them, for it was then that Gavin sometimes saw fit to actually talk to him.

Perhaps he would do it now, RK thought. Bring up some esoteric topic seemingly out of nowhere and force RK, against all his programming and better judgement, to have an opinion on it. Or else - more illicit and more thrilling still - tell RK something about his life. As if he trusted him. As if he really wanted RK to know.

He realized he was waiting for it, and yet RK did not dare be disappointed when Gavin only said, “You find anything out?”

“A few points of interest,” RK told him. Briefly, he summarized what he had learned, about Jordan Elliott’s disappearance from the official record, Alyssa Seok’s apparent retirement from CyberLife. And then about Kamski, who seemed to be at the center of it all.

The one thing he did not mention was the details of Connor’s initial interview with Kamski. RK still did not think they were entirely relevant to the current case. And, more than that, they were about Connor and they were personal.

Connor could keep secrets if he chose. He could do it to protect himself, and to protect others. RK did not have to like it, but he could accept it.

“Hank says I ought to keep you away from Kamski,” Gavin said when he was finished.

RK was irritated. He had not had a chance to accumulate many secrets of his own, but it seemed that the few he had he could not keep.

“I suppose you agree with him?” he said evenly.

“Not if I can help it,” Gavin replied with a shrug. “What do you think?”

“We cannot neglect to interview Kamski. He was present at Ponte Posterum.”

“He’s a person of interest for sure,” Gavin said. “I just meant, I can go talk to him alone. If it’s going to be a lot for you.”

RK wanted to refuse indignantly, angrily, as he had with Lieutenant Anderson, but he could not. Gavin’s offer was different somehow. He was not ordering RK away out of some unfathomable concern for his well-being. Rather, he was soliciting RK’s thoughts, drawing him into the world so they could anchor each other there.

“Avoiding my responsibilities will not make it less,” RK told him. He said it confidently, believing it. “You told me yourself that this is my case, and I intend to pursue it as my case.”

Gavin took a sip of his coffee, and seemed to be thinking.

“All right, then,” he said at last. “We’ll hit up Kamski together. Let’s look into Seok first, though. Chet was pretty sure she’d play ball, and the more information we have, the easier Kamski will be to crack.”

“I concur with your strategy,” RK said. And then, “Please update me on your portion of the investigation.”

“My portion of the investigation was pretty awkward,” Gavin said. “I called up this journalist I used to hang out with. She works the police blotters for the state, and I thought she might have heard something about the boating accident. Couldn’t remember anything off the top of her head, but she promised to do some digging for me.”

“She may find nothing.”

“If there’s something to find, she will,” Gavin assured him. “But, listen: Before I forget, she wanted to know what you think of this thing with Markus. Off the record.”

RK hesitated. “I beg your pardon, I do not know which of Markus’ affairs she is referring to.”

“Oh yeah?” Gavin slipped his phone out of his pocket, flicked open the browser and brought up a breaking news article, which he passed over to RK. “You didn’t know he was going to do this?”

RK read through the article quickly. It had been posted only a few hours ago and was short on details. However, it seemed that Markus had decided to pursue legal action in the matter of his former owner’s estate. He had retained a rather prominent lawyer to that effect, who intended to waive his fee for the duration of the case. However long that would be.

When RK looked up, he realized that Gavin was scrutinizing him very closely. “You really didn’t know,” he said.

“When Markus spoke to me about the matter, he indicated that he intended to do the opposite. He made it clear that he understood he had no legal claim to this human’s estate.”

“An android with an estate…” Gavin said thoughtfully. “Do you think it’s a lot?”

“I am not certain,” RK said. “Though I think it must be a considerable sum, enough that this attorney is willing to work on retainer.”

“The biggest inheritance I ever had to handle was $200 in checking,” Gavin said.

RK waited a moment, wondering if Gavin would tell him more, but instead he changed the subject again. “Figures Markus would be some kind of rich bitch, right? I only saw him in person for about two seconds, but I could tell.”

“Markus has not told me anything about how he lived prior to his deviation.”

“We could find out.” Gavin seemed amused by the prospect. “It’s in the system; all the androids who went rogue are there. Or would that be mean?”

RK considered what to say before responding. He knew that inquiring into Markus’ past was an unspoken taboo. Gavin had called it mean, but that did not seem an accurate description. It was simply accepted as something none of them were supposed to know. RK could not help but wonder at it, though.

Before he could answer, Gavin spoke up again. “I know, I know. It’s against protocol to Wikileaks your boss. You’re curious, though. Admit it.”

“I think that Markus must have developed his artificial intelligence pathways under very unique circumstances to be the person that he is. Of course I’m curious about his past, but finding out more about it would not be illuminating. I do not have a past of my own to compare it to.”

Gavin’s eyes widened at that. He seemed surprised at the statement, and then contrite. RK had not intended for that, though. He had only been stating the facts of the matter.

But before RK could apologize for the misunderstanding, Gavin’s expression shifted again. It appeared in the softening of his brow, the upward tilt at the corners of his mouth. A look of genuine fondness. As if all of RK’s incongruous comments were far more charming than RK knew them objectively to be.

“It’s been a helluva day,” Gavin said. His voice was quiet now, strangely so. “What do you say we get out of here early?”

That was unexpected. RK had never known Gavin to leave the precinct early. In fact, he generally rushed out some time after the end of his shift, with a quick explanation about having to get to the gym.

A strange panic washed over RK at the suggestion. He did not know what he would do with so many idle hours. “We ought to submit the paperwork to interview Ms. Soek and Mr. Kamski.”

“So we do that, then we go,” Gavin said. “You should come have a beer with me. At least you know you’ll be safe from Dry Drunk Hank there.”

“Androids cannot consume alcoholic beverages.”

“Then you'll have to keep track and make sure I drink enough for both of us.” Gavin said that slyly. It did not seem to make much sense to RK, and he considered warning Gavin about the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption. In the end, he said nothing.

“I had fun last time, you know,” Gavin went on, still quietly. “When you came over. I kinda want to hang out with you again.”

RK’s face felt hot. He knew that his cheeks were flushing lavender and that Gavin could see it. 

“I am not previously engaged this evening,” he said, lowering his eyes. “I will accompany you.”

“Good,” Gavin said. Now it wasn’t only his voice that seemed quiet, but the world around them too. There was a strange stillness in the kitchen that seemed to fix them in place for a moment. 

RK could only concentrate on it. That was not unusual, of course, he was built for focus. But concentrating did not reveal anything. His faculties engaged, but to no purpose, as if he was watching something unfold but could not quite see the shape of it. He could see Gavin’s hands on his mug though, and he felt as if his whole self was pulled into that observation. They moved ever so slightly, because they belonged to someone living, and RK could feel that in his chest and in his skin. 

The stillness only lasted a moment. Gavin stood up, drained the last of his coffee, and rinsed the mug out in the sink. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My flight was delayed, but my loss is your gain. Part 1 of RK and Gavin's date night starts now. Part 2 will be posted if I ever get out of this damn airport.

Completing the paperwork they were required to submit for their interviews took, RK registered, 19 minutes and 47 seconds. He registered this because he was experiencing relative time again and it had become necessary to count. 

Gavin filled in the paperwork from his computer, periodically looking up to ask RK a question. His gray eyes had an unusual expression, but his fond little smile had not changed. He seemed pleased, RK thought. Perhaps it was simply the excitement of deviating from routine. Perhaps that was what RK was experiencing, as well. His skin prickled at it, in any event, but he could not pin it down, not exactly. He knew he felt something warm, but it resisted interpretation. That should have frustrated him, but it did not. 

He thought perhaps he should volunteer more than what he was being asked. Gavin did not seem to require him to. That was fortunate, since he did not know what he would have said. Occasionally, Gavin looked up without asking him anything. Almost as if, RK thought, he was checking that RK was still there. 

At the final keystroke, and then click, by which RK understood the forms would be printing, Gavin kicked back in his chair and rolled it across the floor. It was a deft maneuver, clearly practised, because he rolled almost all the way to the printer and could reach the printed forms without getting up. When he rolled himself back, and added his signature, his face was reformed in occupation. His hand - his left - gripping the pen, did not seem particularly small to RK, but he could not help himself from thinking about the way Gavin had compared it to his at the coffee shop. When Gavin had touched him. 

Such an organic thing. As if every single part of his body was imbued with life and had the power to imbue it in others. 

Gavin looked up again. Fond once more. RK felt hot at it again. “Okay,” Gavin said, standing up. 

He didn’t wait for RK’s response before he took the forms to Fowler. He returned in minutes. Four minutes. And 23 seconds. When he did, he took his cigarettes out of their drawer and put them in his pocket. RK registered that as unusual. Ordinarily, Gavin extracted cigarettes one by one. Now, Gavin looked, for a moment, as if he were nervous. But then he shut his eyes and chased it away. 

“It’s beer o’clock,” he said, when he opened them. “You coming?” 

RK stood up to follow him. Gavin was crackling with energy once again. He moved with purpose, quickly and somehow wildly, darting looks back at RK as he led them to the street. 

“You can be my designated driver,” he said, when they reached his car. He fished around for his keys. He had not yet realized that RK did not require them, and RK had never pointed it out. RK decided then that he never would. There was a certain amount of respect conveyed in actually being given Gavin’s keys, and RK did not want to dismiss that. 

Nor did he want to miss what he felt when he caught them, when Gavin threw them over. They were warm from Gavin’s hand. Warm from being buried in his jeans next to his body. 

“Sorry. I’m gonna clean it one of these days,” Gavin added. 

RK adjusted the driver’s seat to his requirements. He thought about saying that there was no need for Gavin to clean his car. Its disarray had begun to feel familiar to him. “I would be happy to assist you,” he said, instead. 

He wasn’t sure why he’d said that. There seemed absolutely no protocol for this situation. He expected he would soon say something that would rupture this peculiar mood and cause Gavin to stop looking at him the way he still was, with energy. With excitement. Fondness. The mood did not make sense, and therefore could not last. He may as well say that thing now as not. 

It seemed he had. 

“I don’t want you cleaning up after me,” Gavin told him, and it sounded firm. In the rearview mirror, RK could see that he meant it. “You already get me coffee.” 

“I am happy to continue getting you coffee,” RK said, starting the ignition and pulling the car out of its park. 

“I know you are, and I wouldn’t want to deny you the pleasure. But you’re not a maid. Okay? You don’t work for me.” 

He was serious about that too. RK, for some reason, wanted to say “thank you.” But he chose not to. It was still hard to speak at all. 

“You okay?” 

“I will need directions.” 

“Oh yeah. Jesus.” His eyes softened again. “Head north.” 

RK did as he was directed. “Thank you for inviting me to…” could he really use the words? “Hang out.”

Gavin’s mouth quirked in the mirror. “Oh yeah?” he said. “You’re gonna wanna take the next left.” 

RK registered that. 

“Got a question for you,” Gavin said, abruptly. “Would you rather be covered in fur, or covered in scales?” 

The question was so absurd RK had to replay it before he could respond. He was almost certain his hearing had somehow been faulty, but it seemed it had not been. He darted a look at Gavin in the mirror. He was watching RK in anticipation. Still smiling. But also waiting. 

“I beg your pardon?” RK said. 

“It’s a game,” Gavin answered. “You have to pick one. Fur or scales?” 

“To what purpose?” 

“It’s a game,” Gavin repeated. “I’d definitely pick fur, by the way. Scales would be a great defense, but I’ve always wanted to be a sexy wolf man. Maybe I read too much Sterek fanfiction at a sensitive age.”

RK didn’t bother to tell Gavin he had not understood the reference. He suspected Gavin hadn’t intended him to. 

“So which one?” Gavin prompted. “Because you’d make a great wolf man. No, wait, you wouldn’t be a wolf man. You’re too classy for that. You’d be a jungle cat. Something sleek. People would want to pet you, but they couldn’t.” 

“A…?” 

“Hang a right. But you’d also make a pretty sinister lizard.” 

“I…” RK sorted through his protocol again. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing there for this, and his inbuilt detective instincts had all but deserted him. He thought furiously to orient himself. More information, he thought. He would need more information. 

“In this scenario,” he said, “would my choice alter other aspects of my appearance? You asked me to select fur or scales, not if I wished to be a jungle cat.” 

Gavin’s smile burst open into a grin. RK saw it happen in the mirror. It was so momentarily arresting that had he not been an android, he would have forgotten to turn the car. 

“Now you’re getting it. No, you’d be you Same body, same everything, just covered in fur. Or scales.” 

“What would be the conditions of maintenance?” 

“What?” 

“My body is not organic. Should I assume the… fur or scales would also be inorganic, or would I… somehow… be covered in organic matter?” 

“Oh yeah,” Gavin said. “Okay, yeah, I think for you… let’s just assume you were android designed that way. To have fur. Or scales. You could probably actually do that, right? God, that’s weird.”

The line of questioning continued to be so absurd that RK could only answer, “Probably.”

“We’re here,” Gavin said. “Okay, let’s table it. Don’t let me forget. This is vital information. Rude it isn’t in your little intro speech.”

RK understood that Gavin was joking, but there was an odd energy to it. He pulled the car over as soon as he observed an available park. When he cut the engine he could feel Gavin looking at him. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his shoulders set. He looked as if he was about to say something. RK waited for it. 

Whatever it was, it never came. Gavin decided against speaking, nodded his head, and exited the car. 

RK followed him to the venue he had chosen. It was small, and when they went inside, dark. Not overly warm, either, which was not a concern to RK, but he wondered whether it might perhaps be a concern to Gavin. Gavin’s hands were still tucked into his pockets as he approached the bar. There were few other patrons, but RK knew they were all looking at him.

The bartender was an older human man. His eyes moved quickly from Gavin and raked over RK, from top to bottom. It struck RK that he did so in a manner similar to Lieutenant Anderson’s at the precinct. The man’s comportment was familiar because of that, in fact. Interesting. RK wondered if he was starting to build up enough experience with humans to be able to recognize type. 

“Haven’t seen one of those in a while,” the bartender finally said, to Gavin. It sounded like a warning. 

“He’s not gonna cause any trouble,” Gavin said, and that sounded like a warning too.

The bartender didn’t answer for a long moment. He looked Gavin up and down now, then looked back to RK. 

“What’re you doing out here?” 

“I am engaged as a liason for the Detroit police department,” RK said. He gaged it was in his best interests to answer directly. “I am accompanying my partner.” 

Gavin nodded. “Yeah.” 

“For a drink?”

“Androids cannot consume alcohol,” RK said, and regretted it. The bartender’s eyebrows shot up. 

“Right, so you’re just gonna sit in my joint not drinking?” 

“I’ll be drinking,” Gavin interrupted. “I mean, I can take my money elsewhere.” 

“Didn’t say that,” the bartender said. “You just don’t see androids in the city anymore. Cause for concern, you know? I gotta ask.” 

“No, you don’t,” Gavin said, and the warning tone was back. “We gonna have a problem, or what?” 

“No problem, officer.” 

“ _Detective_ ,” Gavin growled. 

The bartender put up his hands, palms out. He shook his head, smiling now. “Well sorreee, _Detective_. What can I get you?”

Gavin seemed placated by that. He ordered something out of the tap. The bartender gave him a glass with the pitcher, but Gavin left it on the bar. He led RK to a booth in the back, against the wall. 

RK hesitated before joining him in the booth. There was no reason to hesitate. It was simply that he required a moment to assess. Gavin had asked him to hang out, and for the past hour he had not been able to consider what that could mean. He had been caught up in it. In Gavin’s wake almost, and there he was, sitting against cracked leather, looking at RK over the top of his pitcher of gold colored beer. He had taken a drink directly from the pitcher, which at least explained why he had abandoned the glass. 

His hand did look small holding that, RK thought. 

“You sitting down, weirdo?” 

“What color is the fur?” RK said. 

Gavin blinked. “What?” 

“You did not specify,” RK said, sitting down, “if the fur was a particular color.” 

“You can choose,” Gavin said. He sipped from the pitcher again. “I kind of pictured black. But you can choose.” 

“Am I limited to natural colors?” 

Gavin was grinning again. “Nope.” 

“I will consider it,” RK said. “There are some stipulations I must consider about scales, also.” 

It was not in his programming to willingly, and deliberately, engage in a nonsensical speculation to no purpose. There was no internal script for this ‘game’, as Gavin had called it, and yet it seemed from Gavin’s face that RK had found the right words anyway. He could recognize type and he could do this. The strangeness and thrill of it might have made him a little breathless, if he breathed. 

Gavin was watching RK still, and it wasn’t only his grin that made RK feel as if he had found the right track. It was his interest. The way his eyes were fixed on RK’s and they were wholly, entirely engaged. 

As if RK were performing a trick, RK thought. He supposed he was, in a sense. An android, playing a game. 

“What do you want to know about scales?” Gavin asked. 

It was warmer here in the booth, RK noticed. Heat was coming from a radiator on the wall. 

“There are multiple types,” RK said. “I will assume it is similar to the fur, in that no stipulation for style is given. Am I correct in understanding that game play includes negotiation of the conditions for acceptance of either term?” 

He thought perhaps Gavin wanted to correct his language, but he did not. He had consumed a third of the pitcher already. “You’re correct.” 

“You seemed to think I would make a ‘sinister lizard’,” RK said, “so I will limit myself to reptilian scale types. These may be cycloid, granular, or keeled. There are advantages to either, but the primary decision would be based in aesthetics.” 

“It’s kind of a different question for you,” Gavin said. He put the pitcher down, then picked it up again. “For a human, they’d both change a lot of things. They’d mean extra protection. But that’s not as important for you.” 

In a manner of speaking, RK wanted to say. He wanted to recall Gavin’s comment, reading his palm - this means you’re easily hurt and slow to recover. He did not say that, however. Instead, he recalled something else. “One disadvantage of appearing as a lizard man would be that I could be faced with the indignity of serving as Grady Towner’s lawyer.” 

It took Gavin a moment to understand that. Another moment that, if it had been possible, RK would have been breathless for. Then Gavin snorted. Then he snorted again. Then he laughed so hard he had to put the pitcher back on the table and wipe away the beer that had come out of his nose. 

“God, I forgot about that. What a fucking psycho. I wonder how he’s doing?” 

“I assume we will be notified when he is finally charged.” 

“Yeah, you’d think so. Let’s look it up tomorrow.” 

It was curious to RK that even the mention of doing something tomorrow was reassuring. He felt his face reacting to it, in a fashion that was unfamiliar to him. It felt as if the simulation muscles were softening, somehow. 

“Oh wow,” Gavin said. “You’re almost smiling. You getting a justice boner?” 

RK was certainly not almost smiling anymore. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Sorry,” Gavin said, and the apology seemed reflexive. “I mean I figured you were happy someone guilty was getting charged. That good cop programming.” 

“It would not occur to me to be happy or unhappy about that.”

“Sorry,” Gavin said, again. “I wasn’t criticizing. I wouldn’t blame you for being happy about it. He said… I mean, shit, the things he said…” 

In the interrogation, RK remembered. That seemed to be what Gavin was referring to. Towner’s fetishistic description of bleeding androids to deactivation. Or death, as it was becoming common to think of it now. Since they could no longer replace their bodies.

Gavin looked troubled. His brow was knotted and his mouth - his mouth, RK realized, was very long, very expressive - was pressed together and screwed up. “Do you want to talk about it?” he said. 

The words sounded strange. Practiced, perhaps. “Not particularly,” RK replied.

“Well, if you do…” 

It was a genuinely kind offer, RK understood. He could see that, and hear it, in how odd and almost unnatural it was. It recalled the way Gavin had asked him for his opinion on Kamski, the way he had asked him if he was okay. Structurally it was the same, only practically more awkward. 

It also recalled the way Markus had said that whatever he could do to help, he would. Markus had been sincere, but ultimately unlikely to be able to offer that help. Gavin was sincere, but also determined. 

RK understood then what he should say. “Thank you. If I do wish to discuss it, I will remember your offer.”

“Okay. Good.” 

“Perhaps you could explain to me the advantages of being, as you described it, ‘a sexy wolf man’.” 

Gavin’s reaction to that indicated that RK had, once again, got it right. Gavin grinned, gratefully. “Sexiness isn’t enough of an advantage?” 

RK had the fleeting and utterly bizarre thought that Gavin hardly needed to become a wolf man to access that advantage. It made no sense to him to have that thought, as he was not designed to assess the relative attractiveness of humans. Perhaps he was simply getting better at these situational jokes. The proposition of delving into Markus’ past occurred to RK once again - had Markus developed his unusual pathways in a manner like this? With strange social situations? Through hanging out? 

“Your face,” Gavin said, suddenly, and RK realized too much had been visible. 

“Excuse me? What about my face?” 

“You take everything really seriously. I’m literally talking about being a wolf man.” 

It didn’t sound like a criticism. In fact, it was clear that it was not. Gavin was watching him curiously again, fondly. Looking at RK’s face and then, it seemed, his hands. RK had never had cause to consider what his hands were doing before, but he thought of it now. This would perhaps be a simpler situation to navigate if he, too, were holding a pitcher. 

Gavin was down to the bottom third of his, and RK thought of cautioning him not to drink so quickly. 

He did not do that. “It would seem to me that the point of this game,” he said, “and those others you have introduced me to… they are ways of obtaining information about each other. Not convert exactly, but certainly focused on information that may be difficult to obtain by traditional means.” 

That surprised Gavin. “Wait, what? I mean, sure, yeah, it’s… what?” 

“It is of interest to me that you like to play games that are in accordance with your line of work, as a detective. In fact, you said so during your astrological reading. It would seem that you have a curious nature. That may be common to humans, but I think it is particular to you.” 

Gavin’s smile looked strange now. It looked, RK thought, almost defensive, and he thought, suddenly how interesting it was that in his proposed nonsense scenario, Gavin had not chosen the more obvious armor. 

“You mean I’m suspicious,” Gavin said. “You think I’m trying to trick you.” 

“I do not think that,” RK said. “I said precisely what I think. You have given me no cause to suspect a ‘trick’ of any kind. Rather, it is obvious to me that you operate with a particular intelligence. If I take things seriously, as you say, then you take things as intellectual challenges. Is that why you became a detective?” 

Gavin’s smile was gone. “Wow.” 

Mere moments ago, RK would have taken the fact that Gavin had stopped smiling as evidence of a misstep. He did not now, and he was not entirely sure why he was so confident. It was because, he thought, he could understand the space, could draw predictions from the frozen, waiting air around them. He knew somehow that it was not trepidatious but instead merely private. It did not make sense to know that, and yet he did. 

“Observation, perhaps, is my substitute for reading your palm.” 

Gavin looked down at his pitcher. The warmth in the booth had made it wet with condensation, which was puddling into a small circle of water at its base. RK observed the light in it, even in the dimness of the bar, and he wondered if Gavin did too. 

“Dumb I didn’t think of that,” Gavin said, quietly. 

“I doubt you are capable of being ‘dumb’,” RK said.

Gavin looked up at him again, “I just realized that you’re observing me. That you’re learning about me. I mean, you’re literally meant to do that, right? I just wasn’t thinking… that any of it would be about me, specifically.” 

All at once, RK remembered standing on Chet Carpenter’s doorstep. Remembered seeing Gavin hunch into his coat. Remembered that he never had a charger. Remembered what had occurred to him then - that Gavin, as keenly as he gripped himself into presence in the world, perhaps did not always remember himself when he was alone. 

He was so struck by that recollection that it took him a moment to answer. In that time, Gavin did. He did so in a manner that indicated he had recovered, or more properly was recovering, from whatever had overtaken him at RK’s words. 

“I’m definitely capable of being dumb,” he said. “You should observe harder.” 

“I will do that,” RK answered. 

“I need another beer.” 

Again, it occurred to RK to tell him to drink more slowly, but he did not. “May I get it for you?” 

“Not unless you have money,” Gavin said. “You don’t, right? Shit, I just remembered about that estate thing, with Markus. You’re not even allowed money, right? Where did Connor…?” 

He had not recovered at all. RK’s memory, which seemed determined upon refusing to stay put, drew forward the moment he had shifted his body towards Gavin’s in the car earlier that day. The mention of Connor did not bother him, for some reason.

“I apologize if I was forward,” RK said. 

“No, you weren’t. I just...”

RK waited but Gavin did not continue. “I’m gonna get another beer.”


	10. Chapter 10

In the time he was gone, RK assessed their conversation. He had understood the game and had been playing it correctly, but then he had derailed it. The derail seemed complicated. It was clear Gavin had not expected to be reminded of himself. He had found it unpleasant. And yet, RK thought, initially not wholly so. More that the longer he was forced to consider himself, the less he liked it. 

RK could be more careful, he reasoned. It struck him that many things about Gavin indicated a lack of those around him bothering to be careful. That was a strange thought to have. 

It did not desert him when Gavin returned. Gavin was sipping from another pitcher, but this time, he hesitated before sitting down, and the confidence RK had had evaporated. Gavin was regretting his offer, RK thought. Surely that was what was happening. His body seemed small, tense, wary. It seemed he had to force himself to move. He shuffled himself into the opposite side of the booth. 

“Listen, I was thinking about what you said,” Gavin said. “About Connor’s memories. There’s some stuff I have to tell you.” 

Be careful, RK thought. He kept his voice low, as close as he could make it to being soft. “You do not have to tell me anything.” 

“No, I do,” Gavin said. “If you do get them, look--” 

“Connor has indicated you did not care for androids,” RK told him, and that much was true. That was as much as Connor had said about it, or anything, but he had said that. “I understand that, and I understand your reasoning. Evidently, your opinion has changed. I would not hold past opinions against you.” 

“Not just opinions,” Gavin said. His gaze was steady. He was determined about this too, it seemed. 

RK was not sure how to prompt him. He wanted to offer reassurance, but he sensed that Gavin would not accept it. His only option, then, was silence. Patience, perhaps, was another form of being careful. 

“From a certain point of view,” Gavin said, “you know, maybe Connor’s point of view, beating the shit out of me might have felt… justified…” 

“I do not believe that,” RK said, firmly. 

“You might not have to believe it if you can actually remember it.” 

“Connor’s memories could not counteract my own impressions. My reasoning is superior to his by design. Furthermore, you indicated he had not yet deviated at the time of that interaction, but as I learned from Lieutenant Anderson today, he had. Therefore, his reasoning was newly faulty, in addition to being inferior--” 

“I just don’t want you to be scared of me,” Gavin said abruptly. 

It was a stunning statement. To Gavin as well, evidently, because his face colored as if he had not meant to say it at all. Humans went pink, RK wondered. And of course they did; their blood was red. He observed that as if through a slight haze because the words were so surprising. 

Gavin was trying to correct them, it seemed. “Shit,” he was saying. “Shit, that’s the most selfish fucking thing. I’m sorry, RK, shit. This isn’t about me.” 

“I’m not scared of you,” RK said. “I am not afraid of humans. I am not sure I am capable of feeling fear, at all.” 

“I thought deviants could feel anything.” 

That was true, RK had to acknowledge. Yet, he could not imagine fear. 

That was not correct, he noticed, with a shock. Naming the emotion so specifically and attempting to imagine it brought something forward that he could not ignore. 

Specifically, that it was possible he could not feel fear because, in a sense, he was always feeling it. 

At once, the world seemed full of threats. He could sense the other patrons in the bar, feel them looking. He was aware of shadows and the need to look into them in order to assess with his superior eyes what they might hold. There were shadows in conversation too, and he could not predict them. 

He had been silent too long. This was a preposterous thought to be overwhelmed by. He could not possibly be feeling fear all the time. That was ludicrous. He knew if he could speak he could put an end to the theatrics, but he could not arrest the sensation that had overcome him at his discovery. It had flooded him entirely. It froze him. 

“Hey?” Gavin said. 

RK did not answer him. 

“Hey,” Gavin said, again. 

RK could not answer that either. He was entirely still. So wholly and completely still that the movement near his body felt artificially amplified. He was able to track Gavin’s movement, his shifting in the booth and his body moving forward, but he was not able to respond to it. 

Then, with another shock, he understood that Gavin had reached across the table and taken his hand. 

It felt hot, as if his whole hand was on fire. He had just enough presence to observe Gavin’s odd, concentrated expression. “I’m not trying to freak you out, okay?” Gavin said. “I just want you to be prepared. I owe you that.” 

“You don’t owe me anything,” RK said. “I’m not sure why you would think you would.” 

He thought he should let go of Gavin’s hand but he did not want to. The grip was anchoring him. There was data in it, a blood alcohol reading that was not yet problematic. Unique biometric data. Sweat. More information, he thought, and that was centering. He was, after all, a detective.

What he did want to do was tell Gavin that even if he could feel fear, it was impossible to imagine feeling it about him. He wasn’t sure if he could say that, however. He thought Gavin might simply argue. He seemed determined that RK should think poorly of him, and while RK was not going to indulge that, he perhaps did not need to pick at semantics. He concentrated on the feel of his hand again. Human skin must be different from an android’s gel covering. Not only in heat. 

The moment had extended too long again. At least, it seemed that Gavin realized that, because he jerked his hand away suddenly, then moved it back to the pitcher and took another drink. 

The sensors in RK’s hand tingled with electricity. He felt, now, the ebbing absence of heat. He also noticed that the feeling of threat was gone, or at least had retreated. That brief touch had been enough to thaw him. 

“Sorry,” Gavin said. The sincerity of it sounded painful. RK wanted to ask him, sorry for what, ask for more details of any kind. He knew he was studying Gavin’s face too closely. Watching him in a way Gavin was sure to find too much. Thawed, yes, but now he was stunned silent in another way. 

"Sucks you can’t have a drink,” Gavin said. 

That was ridiculous enough RK was able to make himself nod. A curious sentiment, he thought, but accurate enough. 

“I’ve got a little bit of a buzz going,” Gavin commented, in an apologetic tone. "I don't actually get to do this very often. I'm getting to be a lightweight."

“You are drinking quite rapidly. Though of course you may do as you wish with your leisure time.” 

“ _Our_ leisure time,” Gavin said, wryly. He smiled. It was tight, odd. “Sorry for making things super serious. I should have stuck with Would You Rather.” 

RK’s hand twitched. As strange as it was, he felt compelled to reach out for Gavin’s hand again. The impulse was perhaps driven by wanting to reassure Gavin in the same way as had been done for him. But that was ludicrous. There was no reason for them to hold hands. No reason it should be so meaningful. It was merely a human instinct towards reassurance. And RK was not human. 

“Is that what the game is called?” he asked, fighting every sensation down until his voice was even. 

“Yeah,” Gavin told him. “It’s a classic, like Spin the Bottle or Five Things on a Desert Island.” 

“I do not know those games either.” 

“No reason you would,” Gavin replied. “You’re right, you know. They’re getting-to-know-you games. Well, not Spin the Bottle - that one’s just about kissing. Plus, you can’t play it with two people. No suspense in that.” 

RK wondered if Markus had ever played Spin the Bottle. 

“Here’s another one for you,” Gavin went on abruptly. “Would you rather have spaghetti for hair, or potato chips for fingernails?”

That was more absurd than his previous question. It seemed deliberately so, as if the point were to be as ridiculous as possible. That was helpful. More information, RK thought, once again. 

“What was your selection?” he asked. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Gavin said. “Look at this hairline. I wouldn’t sacrifice this for anything. I could just wear gloves.” 

“It would seem to me that…” RK swallowed “...potato chip fingernails would be problematically brittle, even if you were wearing gloves.” 

It also occurred to him that it would be just as much of a shame for Gavin to cover his hands. They seemed a very essential part of him now. Deft and expert. Pleasingly shaped. RK wondered if the nerve endings there could feel as much as his own sensors. 

“They regrow every night,” Gavin informed him of the potato chip fingernails, as if it were an absolutely established fact. “They both do. They’re both edible. If you could eat.” 

“Then perhaps a consideration, for a human, would be a permanent source of sustenance.” 

Gavin’s grin had not returned, but it did play at the edges of his mouth. “Yeah, perhaps. Maybe you could let people eat them and end world hunger.” 

“Surely, spaghetti is more nutritious.” 

“They’re both empty carbs,” Gavin said, knowingly. “But okay, sure, I guess it’s more filling.” 

“Spaghetti may be more useful to my particular function, then. Though, aesthetically, as you suggest, potato chip fingernails may be easier to hide.” 

“I guess it’s a question of, how inhuman do you want to look?”

“Precisely. But I have not been interested in misleading anyone. I am not human, it doesn’t trouble me that I do not look as if I am.” 

“This game is actually way better with an android,” Gavin said, setting his pitcher down again. “There are only so many issues you can take, as a human, but it’s a whole different question for you.” 

That sounded genuine. RK wished he could remember how he’d almost smiled, because he wanted to do it again. It seemed vital to impress upon Gavin that he wanted to be here, somehow, that nothing had been ruptured. “I’m glad I can contribute.”

“It’s just so weird to me,” Gavin continued. “Seventeen days. That’s it, that’s the entire time you’ve been alive. Now you’re here, talking about sexy wolf men and spaghetti hair.” 

“I have nothing for comparison,” RK said, and Gavin looked at him. Sympathetically, it seemed. 

“I just keep thinking about it. Before… I mean, before things changed, you would have just been set up to work, in the same way, just sent out to get into it. I guess maybe it would have been easier. More obvious what you were supposed to be doing or… but it’s still the same kind of… a whole person, instantly. That’s genuinely fucking weird.” 

“I’ve considered that it may have been easier,” RK said. “But again, I have no basis for comparison.” 

“Right, and that’s why you don’t want to know about Markus. And I get that, I do, or at least I think so, but it’s _weird_. For me, as a human. Obviously not for you.” 

“I apologize that it troubles you.” 

“No, don’t. Don’t apologize. I’m just thinking. It’s my curious nature.” 

His eyes flicked over to RK’s when he said that. Slyly, over top of his rapidly emptying pitcher. As if he was checking that RK knew he had made a reference to their earlier discussion, a joke. That he was joking was reassuring and RK attempted to smile again.

Gavin reacted to that as if he were waiting for something. RK did not know what it was. 

“You may ask me about being an android, if you like," he attempted. "I can’t answer as a representative. My abilities and intended functions are not common to other androids. I’m not typical, nor is my experience. But if there’s something I can answer, I will attempt to do so.” 

“But isn’t every android’s function different? I mean, are any of you really typical?” 

“If they had manufactured more RK900 models, perhaps that would be accurate. However, while most models were mass produced, as far as I am aware, I am the only RK900.” 

“Were they going to make more?” 

“That was CyberLife’s intent, yes. Events overtook them.” 

“Right,” Gavin said. He took another sip from his pitcher before setting it down again. “I don’t know which is weirder. The idea of having a lot of people around the same as you, or being the only one in a context where there are supposed to be a lot. It doesn’t fit exactly with anything else; I’m looking for a direct human analogy, but there isn’t one.” 

He seemed barely aware of RK, saying that. He spoke as if the concept had distracted him entirely. He was looking into the distance, as if his thoughts were mapping out there, before his gaze, as if he could see them physically. 

“Perhaps not,” RK said. 

Gavin’s attention snapped back to him. “Hope I’m not putting you on the spot.” 

“I was sincere in my offer.” 

“I know. But there’s such a thing as too private. Let me know if I'm crossing a line." 

He meant it. All of this was genuine, RK realized, every single part of it. The offer to hang out. The awkward expressions of interest. The attempted confession about Connor. His hand.

Thanks to Gavin’s expertly nonsensical distractions, RK had momentarily managed to put being touched by him out of his mind. To forget that brief, furtive grip upon his own hand and how strange and steadying it had been. But it overwhelmed him again now and he could not stop replaying it. He and Gavin could never sync, he realized. They could never share memories and information. They could never touch hands in absolute clarity, or for an explicit reason. They would always be reaching for, and then agreeing upon, whatever it meant to touch hands. He was right. There was no human analogy.

“You haven’t,” RK said, against all of that. He wished there were some way for him to clear his throat. “But you are very concerned about that, you’ve asked me several times in our acquaintance. Have I given you the impression that you might?” 

Gavin shook his head. “Not exactly. I mean, you’re stoic. And it’s hard to get a read, like I told you. But there’s something else that I’ve thought about. That I try to think about.” 

He would have volunteered it if RK had not asked, but RK asked anyway. “Which is?” 

Gavin shuffled himself against the booth. “Do you remember a couple of weeks ago? On, uh, The Night of the Living Dead Androids?” 

“I beg your--”

“When Markus… when he gave his speech.” 

Absurd to think there was any possibility of RK’s forgetting that, even if he had been human. But he said, “Yes, I remember.” 

“Look, you said something… I think about it a lot.” 

RK immediately began sorting through his memories of that 24 hour period. He could recall his conversations with Gavin in approximately perfect clarity, allowing for sensor errors. But he did not have to locate the statement himself. Gavin informed him of it. 

“You said it was hard for you to contradict a human. Because of your programming.”

RK did remember that. “I believe we came to a resolution.” 

“Yeah, we did. But I think about it. I can’t change your programming and I’m not trying to, but I just want you to know that you can. You can tell me to fuck off.” 

“I have no intention of telling you to fuck off,” RK said, quietly. He was not wholly aware why he should say it quietly, but he was absolutely sure that he should.

“I’ll try to keep it that way.” 

“Gavin,” RK said, and Gavin’s head shot up, because his name was still a command override, apparently. Or whatever the closest approximation to that was, in a human. “May I ask you a question? As a human?” 

“I’m not exactly representative either,” Gavin said, his mouth quirking in an odd way. This new pitcher was nearing emptiness too, but Gavin did not seem unsteady. 

RK wondered how unusual he really was, for a human. He had no way of knowing. “It’s important to you,” he said. “Refusing information, and also sharing it at times of your own discretion. Why is that?” 

Gavin looked at him very intently. It was a thinking look rather than a probing look, but it took in every part of RK’s face. He could feel Gavin studying him. Studying the situation as well, perhaps. Something evaluative was going on. He drank again, more than once, and as much as a minute passed before he answered.

But he did not directly answer RK’s question. “Here’s another Would You Rather for you: Would you rather have every single thought you had show, like in a bubble over your head, or have everything you did play on a live stream anyone could access?” 

He was not changing the subject, RK thought. Not precisely. There was something in the question that was meant, if not as answer, then as clarification, and he set his mind to tackling it. 

“What was your preference?” he asked. 

“Live stream,” Gavin said, quickly. “I’d just jack off until people got sick of watching it. Or got more into watching it, I guess.” 

Someone else might have meant that to be provocative, but Gavin clearly did not, and RK turned it over in his mind. “Then it is more important to you to keep your thoughts private.” 

“Human thoughts are stupid,” Gavin said. “They’re irrational sometimes. You think something, you feel something, but it’s… not finished. It isn’t always what you actually think.” 

“I’m not sure I follow.” 

“I don’t know if it’s like that for you,” Gavin said, draining the last swallow. “You’ve got a logical computer brain. Maybe you wouldn’t mind if everyone could see your thoughts.” 

RK opened his mouth to answer. Then he thought better of it. He could think of many times he had chosen to say something other than what he had been thinking, even during the conversation at hand. He could not parse whether this was an issue unique to deviancy, or whether it would have been true anyway. He had been programmed with the ability to withhold information where it was sensible to an investigation, even to lie and mislead if it was called for. Connor had had those abilities too. Was that how it had been possible he hadn’t known he was a deviant?

“I am not sure I would enjoy either scenario,” RK said, finally. 

“That’s the game,” Gavin said. “They both suck but you have to pick one.” 

RK had to repeat the word ‘game’ to himself. It was not real, of course. All of this was hypothetical. Selecting an option would not force it to come to pass. 

“Then live stream,” he said. Because I’ve never been _as_ ashamed of an action, he almost added, before understanding the irony of the fact that he did not add it. 

Gavin nodded. “So. Not sure it’s a human thing,” he said. “I’m gonna get another beer.” 

RK stopped himself from offering to get it a second time. The impulse was there even as he understood that androids could not possess money. His own accommodations and the awkward arrangements in place for the occupied city to even receive donations proved that. And Markus was pursuing an estate. That had to be why he was doing it. That was the most logical reasoning for following such a strange and personal course of action as the most visible android in the world. If androids could own money, RK would have been able to get Gavin’s beers for him.

Gavin came back very quickly. He sat down quickly this time as well. “I’m gonna slow down,” he said, as if in amendment. “Just so you don’t worry about me.” 

“I didn’t say I was worried about you,” RK said. 

“But you are,” Gavin informed him. “While we’re tripping down memory lane, maybe the second conversation we ever had was about you wanting me to eat something.” 

“And you did.” 

“Well, now I’m pacing myself. You approve.” 

RK could not entirely deny that he did. He nodded, and Gavin grinned. Nothing seemed to have prompted it. He must have been at least mildly intoxicated. 

“That’s probably part of your programming too, isn’t it? To look out for us stupid humans. To protect us from ourselves.”

“It is,” RK admitted. “And as such it does not feel like an inconvenient task.” 

“I was just asking,” Gavin said. “It's just curiosity. It’s my--” 

“Your curious nature.” 

“Yeah.” 

He had liked that observation, RK understood. He’d taken it as a compliment and had even, it seemed, treasured it. Certainly, every time he returned to it, it was with pleasure. 

It had been so easy to compliment him. RK had only told him a small truth about himself, something anyone would have found obvious. He resolved that he would make more of them, though equally, he thought, he would have to be careful. 

Gavin’s small body had relaxed now. RK could see that. His chin was in his hand, elbow propped on the table, shoulders loose, one hand drawing idly in the new puddle of water forming at the base of his latest pitcher. Gavin was content now. His posture looked content, at any rate.

His words sounded that way too. “I keep thinking there’s going to be something I can’t talk to you about,” he said. “But every stupid thing I say. Even Would You Rather. You take it seriously.” 

“You are yet to say anything stupid,” RK told him. “But I apologize if you would prefer more levity. I can attempt to make more jokes.” 

RK no longer felt self-conscious about apologizing, he noticed. He was not sure when that had happened, but it had. Gavin did not seem annoyed by his doing it either. In fact, his face was very soft. His eyes traveled over RK very slowly. His face first. Then, as far as RK could tell, Gavin was looking at his hands again. This time, RK did not feel the need to move them. 

“Your jokes are pretty good, actually. But that’s not what I mean. You’ve been… Hanging out with you has been good.” Gavin murmured. His voice was so quiet RK paused on the verge of amplifying his hearing. “I just wondered if maybe you wouldn’t mind…” 

“Wouldn’t mind what?” RK said, when Gavin did not continue. 

“It’s nothing, forget it,” Gavin said, pulling back out of his easy slump. He took a quick swallow. “Doesn’t matter.” 

“I’m sure I wouldn’t mind.” 

“Really not important.” 

“If you’re certain.” 

“Yeah, I am,” Gavin said. His cheeks were pink again. RK assumed that was the alcohol. Perhaps also the heat in the booth. “I’m trying to think of another one for you.”

“Another question?” 

“Yeah. A Would You Rather, not an android question.” 

“I wouldn’t mind that.” 

“I figured. But you still didn’t decide on scales or fur, by the way.” 

“I was thinking,” RK said. “As pertains to my function, as an android under the present circumstances, it might be more prudent to choose looking like a cat. People seem to prefer cats. Even you have indicated as such.” 

Gavin snorted. “I don’t hate cats, sure.” 

“You are not alone in that preference,” RK informed him. “It is not exclusively a human preference either. You are aware that the occupied city cares for a number of stray felines?” 

“Yeah, you told me about Connor’s Home for Wayward Felines. Weird coincidence we’ve both got cat-crazy siblings.” 

RK did not bother to correct Gavin on the use of the term ‘sibling’. It was close enough, he decided, close enough for Gavin’s human understanding. “I trust Linda is well?” 

Gavin’s eyes widened slightly, in surprise. “She’s good. She sold one of her costumes yesterday. A cat one, which is good because sometimes she makes me try the human ones on. I’ll tell her you asked.” 

“She would be interested I asked about her?” 

“Oh yeah,” Gavin said. “She asks about you.” 

Something about that struck RK in the middle of his chest. A warm feeling. Spreading. The only way Linda Reed could have known to ask after him would be if Gavin had talked about him, to his sister, in his home. 

It must have shown in his face, because Gavin smiled. It was that same fond smile, the one RK had been seeing on and off over their whole day. “Watch out,” he said. “If you’re not careful, she’ll make you a costume too.” 

RK had nothing to say to that. It did not seem he was required to say anything either. Gavin took a drink. He had, in fact, slowed down, RK was gratified to note. Still, given the time of day and the fact that he had been steadily drinking since leaving work, he should probably eat something. RK was tempted to say so. He wondered if it would be welcome. 

Gavin certainly wasn’t thinking about food. In fact, the next thing he said was almost entirely removed from any conversation they had been having. “She actually got excited about Eddie’s theater thing, because of the costumes. Which is great, because now I get to be an asshole to two siblings.” 

Very little of that made sense to RK. But he did recognize the name -- Eddie. In the coffee shop Gavin had mentioned him. RK had been about to ask, been almost sure he could ask. And, he realized, the tone of the conversation was such that he could ask now. Gavin would let him, he knew that. 

“Eddie is an additional sibling?” 

“Yeah,” Gavin said. His smile twitched sideways. “Ed. Yeah. My baby brother.” 

“And he is involved with the theater. Is he a performer?” 

“No, he is not,” Gavin said, rolling his eyes. “He wants to change his major, but he can do that on his own fucking dime. I’m not paying for a useless degree.” 

There was considerable information in that statement. “You fund his collegiate studies?” 

“He’s just an idiot kid,” Gavin said. “Sure, okay, being in plays looks fun now, but it’s not going to help him get a job. There’s just no foresight, you know? I can’t really blame him for being twenty-one but that’s sure as shit too old for me to be bankrolling teenage delusions for him.” 

“And Linda is not in agreement?” 

“Linda’s just nice. It doesn’t matter. I don’t mean to bring this up, it’s just family bullshit.” 

RK let that wash over him. “You let me discuss my… ‘family bullshit’. And I was grateful for the opportunity.” 

That made Gavin snort. Then smile. “That’s right, I did.” 

“If you would like to discuss it, I am happy to listen.”

Gavin pressed his hand into his chin again. He met RK’s eyes across the booth. He held them, and it seemed entirely deliberate, full of communication. They could never sync, but Gavin seemed determined to achieve something of the same result by gaze alone. 

Once again, RK felt impossibly, stupidly breathless.

“Hey, here’s one,” Gavin said, at last, eyes still fixed on RK’s. “Would you rather have to badger your dick brother for his totally logical sex memories, or yell at my dumbass brother for his stupid artsy life choices?” 

There was no possible response to that except to laugh. RK was not prepared for it. He was not programmed for it either. It seemed to swim out of the ether, into his chest, and then out of his mouth. It left as quickly as it had come, but the sound of it was so striking RK thought he could hear it ringing in the air for moments afterwards. 

Gavin stared at him, stunned. And then he beamed. “I actually made you laugh!” 

RK was stunned as well. Too stunned to do anything but nod. 

“Holy shit, did you know you could do that?” 

“No,” RK said. “But I must commend you for the question. I’m aware I am new to the game but this is an impressive addition.” 

He hesitated before adding the next part. The language was sticky for him, but he was adaptable. “Both possible options quite clearly suck.” 

Now Gavin was laughing. Thankfully for him he had not recently taken a drink and so nothing came out of his nose, because he was laughing in such earnest it absolutely would have. His shoulders were hunched forward and RK could not help but note the similarity between this posture and his defensive one, earlier in the day. It felt good to see it in this context instead. It felt precious. 

How strange to feel his body want to move towards Gavin’s again. He could see the appeal of cats in this at least, he thought. A small, vulnerable body. Warm, living. How easily it could be picked up and held. 

He would not have acted on it. At least, he did not think he would have. He did not, however, get the chance to decide. He felt movement behind him, then a hand on his shoulder. 

A man’s voice said, “Hey.” 

RK spun round immediately and assessed the situation. Besides the man who had touched him, there were two more. They were of average size, few distinguishing features, dressed casually. RK could not take biometric data through his clothing, though he took in each appearance and logged it. 

“What the fuck do you want?” Gavin snarled. He had tensed already, RK could see that in his peripheral vision. 

“Told you,” the man touching RK said to the others. He took his hand away. For a moment, RK had no idea what that could mean, until he understood that of course, he had turned around and they could see his LED. 

Not that that would have been particularly needed. He was still wearing his uniform, which had ANDROID clearly lettered on the back. 

He understood the situation. “Perhaps it is time to leave,” he told Gavin. 

“Wow, you really are advanced,” said the man who was addressing him. “Got it in one.” 

Gavin was not appeased. “The fuck it is. Get out of his face.” 

“I’ll get out of his face when he gets out of my fucking city. They’re not supposed to be out here.” 

“Yeah, and you’re obviously not supposed to be out of whatever testing facility they keep you in,” Gavin said. “I’m gonna give you a chance to fuck off and you’d better take it.” 

The man folded his arms. He stepped away from RK and closer to Gavin’s side of the booth. The other men followed suit. RK could see Gavin tensing further. He could feel himself readying, almost mirroring Gavin’s movements. 

“Detective Reed,” he said, hoping that an appeal to the authority of Gavin’s title would diffuse the situation. “Confrontation is not necessary. It is clear the environment has become hostile.” 

“Yeah, I’m about to make it fucking hostile,” Gavin snapped. 

“Say again, little man?” 

“Pretty sure you fucking heard me.” 

Gavin’s fists were clenched. He seemed spring loaded, as if all of his energy had coiled inside him and was readying itself to let go. RK wondered if the men could see that too. They must have seen it. Surely it was impossible to miss. 

“Your robo-dog isn’t going to protect you,” the man said. It was low on his breath, like a hiss. Or like a match lighting a fuse. And that was the effect it had on Gavin. 

RK saw it unfold in split seconds. His preconstruction mapped the path of the man’s fist from his cocked shoulder, the forward progression of the two other men. He plotted Gavin’s ducking it and his response from the preparation in his muscles. He did not let it occur. The moment Gavin stood up, and the men moved, RK grabbed Gavin by the collar of his jacket and pulled them both out of range. 

The men stumbled against the booth. RK set Gavin on the ground but kept hold of his collar. Stupidly, hurriedly, he thought about cats once again. This was how a mother cat protected a kitten - by picking it up by its scruff, removing it from threats. 

Gavin seemed too stunned to struggle against it. The three men, in turn, took whole moments to react. 

“We will not trouble you any further,” RK said. “We will leave immediately.” 

“RK!” Gavin protested. “Fuck, you can’t just let them…” 

“Yeah, go on,” one of the other men spoke up. “Yeah, get out of here.” 

RK nodded. He sensed that Gavin wished to protest again, but he did not allow him to. He had let go of his collar, but he did not wait for him as he turned to leave. 

Gavin had collected himself enough to complain when they reached the door. “What the fuck!” he said. 

RK did not answer him, so he repeated it when they stepped out onto the street. “What the fuck, RK! What the fuck!” 

RK could feel every part of his anger. It was beyond curious to him that it did not penetrate. All it did was wash over him. He felt calm. Clear. “I promised you I would respect your wish to not fight particular battles for you,” he said. “I would ask the same in return.” 

“You don’t want me to… no, what the fuck. I’m not going to let people talk to you like that. I’m not going to be thrown out of a bar in my own fucking city. Not by meathead assholes who are scared of a fucking android.” 

It was dark, and the roads were empty. They were the only two on the sidewalk. Gavin hugged his jacket around him, though he seemed otherwise not to notice the cold. The snow had piled up while they were inside. It was still falling softly, steadily. Where it landed on Gavin’s hair it left spots of white, but where it landed on his skin it melted instantly, almost before it could come in contact with the flesh, so that his cheeks and forehead were streaked with bright, cold water. 

“I am an ambassador,” RK told him. “Maintaining a professional demeanor is paramount. Engaging in physical altercations would do unmeasurable damage to the already poor image of androids in the human city.” 

“You can’t be professional enough for guys like that!” Gavin yelled. “You can’t do anything!”

He seemed unaware that he was yelling. RK wanted to move in some way to calm him, but he could not push past his still feeling, his clarity, and he was rooted to the spot. 

“I can try.”

“Don’t you get it?” Gavin was still yelling. “You can’t do anything to stop them, and _fuck them_! People can’t talk to you like that!” 

“They barely said anything,” RK said, knowing it was a moot point. 

However, perhaps the fact that he had not raised his voice had lured Gavin into being quieter to match him. The fury in his voice was still apparent, but he did not yell again. “They said enough.” 

“I’m all right,” RK tried. 

Gavin looked up at him with wild eyes. “Are you? Good.” 

“Are you?” 

“Do I fucking look all right?” 

“Your stress levels are elevated.” 

“Yeah, no shit.” 

“You are also likely intoxicated. Perhaps it would be sensible to obtain something to eat.” 

Something in Gavin seemed to crumple at that. The fight went out of him and he hugged himself in his jacket again. Small, RK thought again. Small enough to be vulnerable, and yet he would have taken on three opponents alone. 

“Maybe,” Gavin said, quietly. 

“Do you have a preference?” 

“Sorry,” Gavin said. “Sorry if I… they just shouldn’t talk to you like that. They shouldn’t talk about you like that. Talking past you like… sorry.” 

RK’s chest felt hot again. He could have picked him up by the scruff a second time. No more apologizing, he would have said. 

Gavin could not read his thoughts. But he stopped apologizing. “Fucking dicks,” he said, hunching down and grinding his foot into the snow. 

“Yes, I agree,” RK said. “I have your keys. Where would you like to go?” 

“RK?” Gavin said. 

“Yes?” 

“Do you really think of yourself like that? As an ambassador?” 

“Yes,” RK said. “I’m the only android in the human city. It is only natural humans would be observing my behavior.” 

“I just…” 

“Are you all right?” RK asked. He had stepped closer to Gavin without forethought. He could not say with no thought. In truth, he was aware of his movements. He simply felt compelled to be nearer to him. 

When he moved, Gavin looked up again. Startled. Tense. His gray eyes seemed hot, blazing in fact. He anchored them into RK’s again and fixed him there. 

RK moved to step back. “I’m sor--”

Gavin stopped him. He grabbed the collars of RK’s jacket, pulled his lithe, compact body up, and kissed RK on the mouth. 

RK almost stumbled. The precision in his carbon fiber frame corrected him, and he did not, but it was so surprising he absolutely would have done without it. He was not sure what he ought to make his mouth do in response, but it seemed Gavin was not troubled by that. After a moment, he pulled back. 

He was standing up on the balls of his feet, RK realized. Like an animal. “Oh, shit,” he said.

RK could not reply. There were too many sensations to sort through, and they overwhelmed him. Gavin’s mouth had been very soft. The taste of it seemed to echo through him, seemed more than just data. Though there was plenty of that too. Blood alcohol level, chemical components of the beer, Gavin’s own biosignature, unique and mammalian. He could feel his hands at his side and they felt strange there. He ought to move them, he thought. He wanted to move them. 

One of Gavin’s hands had let go of RK’s collar. He reached it up, to RK’s temple and touched there, on the LED. “It’s red.” 

He was processing all of this too rapidly, RK thought. Gavin wouldn’t understand that, his eyes were very wide, pupils big in the dim light. He looked transfixed, openly curious. Then there was a little wrinkle of concern between his brows and RK ached to reassure it.

“You okay?” Gavin said. 

RK swallowed. He nodded. 

“Want me to let go?” 

RK couldn’t answer. He could smell Gavin’s hair again. That same earthy bright scent. It filled him to the edges of his skin, along with the taste in his mouth. Even the smell of the snow seemed sharper. 

The wrinkle of concern deepened and Gavin seemed about to move away. RK moved his hands just in time. He brought them to Gavin’s waist and held him there. 

Doing that made Gavin smile. He shifted his body in RK’s hands. He slipped his hand down from RK’s face, then slid it under RK’s jacket and onto his back. He pulled closer. 

“Hey, c’mere,” he said. “I gotta tell you something.” 

RK could hear him perfectly well, but he inclined his head slightly anyway. 

Gavin kissed him again. It seemed deeper this time. Enthusiastic. As he did it he pressed his body into RK’s. RK could feel the heat of him against his stomach, against his chest. There were layers to the way he tasted. Endless streams of information to follow. Every single part of him wanted to see where they would lead. 

When Gavin pulled away from him again, he looked serene. “Fuck,” he breathed. 

It was accurate enough. RK nodded. 

Gavin had moved both of his hands now. They were hooked around the small of RK’s back, and he settled down onto his feet again. His head was level with RK’s chest and for a moment he pressed it there. 

After a moment, a moment during which RK could feel him breathing against his body, he looked up. “Hey, I got another one for you.” 

RK could only look at him. They could not sync. They could never sync, but, he thought, his expression must show enough they wouldn’t need it. He certainly felt that it did, and it appeared that Gavin understood it. 

In fact, it was very clear from the way he smiled that he understood it exactly. “Would you rather:” Gavin said. “Go home alone to your robot city, or come back to my place and hang out with me?”


	11. Chapter 11

The steering wheel felt strange in his hands, though RK had held it many times before. Everything had become strange, as if somewhere between exiting the door of the bar and entering the door of Gavin’s reassuringly messy vehicle, RK had stepped out of his own reality and into one that was alike in form but not in function.

He had agreed to go back to Gavin’s apartment, and that should have been familiar too. RK had been there before, and he had logged every detail of it automatically, so that he ought to have been able to recreate a simulated image of it in precise detail with very little effort at all. The actuality was very different, though. When RK tried to think of Gavin’s home - the old threadbare sofa, the newish television, the cramped kitchen pasted onto the floor plan, the hallway that led off into darkness and the rooms where he had not been allowed - all that he could picture was a black and shapeless mass, writhing in the air before him.

RK understood that it was not a reconstruction of the apartment itself that his system was trying to process, but rather what would happen when they arrived there. In truth, he did not know exactly, but he felt it must be something that would extend naturally out of what had happened outside the bar. If he had more experience, he would have known. He would have been able to prepare for it. 

Desperately, frantically, scrambling for something indisputable and concrete by which he could orient himself, RK reviewed what he knew.

They had kissed. Once that had seemed driven by Gavin’s excess of emotion and so had perhaps not counted, but then again. Slower the second time, more deliberate. And then RK had said he would rather go home with Gavin.

He already knew what would happen when they got there, he realized. He knew its name and its biological function, and in theory he knew the shape it would take. What he did not know was how he would go through with it. He had not been built for this, he was sure of that. His mechanical body would seize up the moment he tried it. His AI would reject it as corrupted data.

He was not like Connor, not in this way either.

RK brought the vehicle to a halt at a red light. They were very close now - only a street away - but instead of trying again to think his way through the upcoming cataclysm, he turned his head slightly to glance at Gavin, who was reclined in the passenger seat next to him. An excess of alcohol and the excessive heat flooding the interior of the car had affected him, and he looked very relaxed. His thighs were angled apart, a posture that RK could only interpret as inviting. 

When he noticed RK looking at him, Gavin set a hand on his own knee, pivoted it so his fingers were facing inward, and, with deliberate slowness, traced them up the inseam of his jeans, following the tilt of his thigh towards its inevitable terminus. RK did not see what happened when it got there; it was at that moment that the light changed, and RK turned his full attention back to the nearly empty street.

Presently, they were outside Gavin’s building. RK did not know how long it had been; he was no longer experiencing relative time, but rather no time at all. As if all the workings of the world had ground to a halt so that he could see this through to its end. 

He parked on the street and turned off the engine, but he didn’t move right away. Neither did Gavin, until at last he said, “We’re here.”

RK nodded.

“You’re quiet all of a sudden.”

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Before he could turn to face it, Gavin’s hand was on the side of his face, moving over his cheek, briefly tracing a circle around the LED at his temple. Following its light.

“Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

Without waiting to see if RK would reply, Gavin slipped out of the car. RK collected the keys before following.

Gavin lived in a large, run-down tudor house that had been converted haphazardly into apartments. The entrances were in the back, as if to conceal them from the street, which made RK question whether the extensive renovations that had doubtlessly gone into the property were all properly zoned. He had not asked the first time he was here, and he had no intention of doing it now. Gavin, it seemed, preferred to remain blissfully ignorant of such things.

Having been inside, RK thought he might be able to understand why. Though the rooms seemed stitched together in defiance of whatever floor plan had existed previously, Gavin’s apartment did have a number of features that hinted at a decaying elegance: hardwood floors, a fireplace, and a delicate miniature rose window set in the door.

That window was dark now, as RK came close to it. Gavin was waiting by the door, hunched in his jacket, his hands fisted into his pockets. He needed his keys, RK realized with a jolt, and he was quick to hand them over.

“Linda’s asleep,” Gavin informed him. “You have to be quiet.”

He had to make a few stabs before the key slotted into the lock properly, and RK was not sure whether it was because he was shivering or intoxicated. Or because his hand trembled for an entirely different reason. 

At last, he got the door unlocked. He pushed it halfway open before slipping in sideways. RK at first thought it was a clumsy attempt at stealth, but when he followed Gavin inside he saw that the entryway was cluttered with boxes that had certainly not been there on his first visit.

Linda’s personal effects, he presumed. Rifled but still mostly packed from her recent move.

There was something else that was new in the apartment this time: a hot animal smell. Not unpleasant to RK’s senses, but bordering on it. It was the smell of four cats in a small and not particularly well ventilated living space. No amount of good housekeeping would ever be able to get rid of it entirely, and Gavin was not, RK remembered, a particularly good housekeeper.

The main room of the apartment was dark, but RK could see in almost no light at all. He could make out all the familiar details, and the new ones, the instant he stepped inside. Gavin, presumably, did not know this, because as soon as he had closed the door behind them and done up the latch once more, he reached for RK’s hand.

A jolt ran through him when they touched, as if RK had accidentally taken hold of a live wire. He felt it all the way up his arm, into his head. The static was back, cutting through any attempt at rational thought and rendering it into so many broken and distorted images. RK felt himself moving - being led - down that hallway where he had never been, into the darkness that was so deep even his extraordinary scotopic vision could not penetrate it.

Gavin turned to glance over his shoulder as he stepped through the bedroom door. He was confirming that RK was still behind him, but it was far from a sly and subtle movement. In his inebriated state, he canted to the side, off-balance. RK stepped forward to catch him around the waist and set him upright once more.

It seemed that Gavin misunderstood the gesture. As soon as RK's arm tightened around him, he leaned back against it. His motions were loose-joined, serpentine. RK understood it was due to his intoxication, but he found the swaying mesmerizing. Gavin's hands fumbled up to his shoulders, and he pushed him back a step, towards the wall.

RK had paused in the process of closing the bedroom door behind them, and when his shoulder blades struck it it finished slamming shut.

Gavin jumped at the abrupt noise. "Holy shit. Jesus fucking christ. You want to wake up my sister?" he hissed.

"I apologize," RK said. He was still leaning against the door, and Gavin was leaning against him in such a way that their bodies were almost flush. His fingers curled against RK's chest, and then he twisted his hands to wrap them around the knot of his tie.

"Shut the fuck up," he said, but he wasn't angry. He sounded content, even smug, like he had after their successful interview with Chet Carpenter. RK was aware that he had sounded that way then because it had been a victory for him. Beyond that, he did not know or want to know. He didn’t want to think about Chet Carpenter right now.

RK lifted his hands at his sides. He kept them there for a moment without moving, then he set them on Gavin's hips. A thought occurred to him: Despite what Gavin had said, he needed RK to say something, and RK cast about blindly until he found his voice.

"What would you prefer I do instead of speaking?"

It was curious, watching Gavin's face in the moments after he said that. The way his brows first came together, and then shot upward, as a sly smile spread across his face.

"Let me see what-" he made a gesture with a flick of his wrist that encompassed RK's body "-this whole situation is like first."

He started at the collar of RK’s uniform, undoing the hidden clasps so that the stiff material parted over his chest. Though he had been unsteady on his feet a moment ago, Gavin’s hands were sure enough now as they loosened his clothing. RK did not move to help him; he kept his arms straight down at his sides, his hands loose, though he had an inexplicable urge to clench them into fists.

Gavin spread the front of RK’s uniform open. Without it, RK realized he felt exposed, as if it were not clothing that Gavin had peeled away but rather flesh from bone. His hands went back to RK’s throat and began to work at the knot of his tie, loosening it in turn so he could get to the buttons of his shirt. He undid them as far as RK's sternum, then slipped his hands under the fabric and pressed them hard against his bare chest. His fingers were cold - that was the first thing RK noticed - but where they came in contact with his gel skin, they felt hot. They left burning trails in their wake as Gavin explored RK's abdomen, his ribs, the hollows beneath his collarbones. One of his nails flicked past a nipple, engaging the subcutaneous sensors there, causing it to harden beneath his touch.

RK held very still, analyzing the sensation without trying to simulate an outward reaction just yet. Gavin had reacted, though. He had begun to breathe hard, and there was a flush in his cheeks. His attention was focused on the wedge of uncovered skin. It was flawless, RK knew that about himself. He knew it without arrogance or vanity, as simply a statement of fact and testament to the care that had gone into his creation. Even taking that into consideration, it did not account for the intensity with which Gavin was looking at him.

"Come on," Gavin said. One hand dropped to RK's waist, curling around his belt. He gave it a tug as he stepped back deliberately, drawing RK after him.

RK followed him, matching Gavin step for step. Not that there were many steps required to cross the cramped and dusty room. The bed was unmade, the sheets wadded into a rumpled pile. It did not require a scan to tell that they had not been changed in some time.

Gavin paused long enough to shrug out of his jacket. He tossed it towards a chair in the corner of the room where it appeared that most of his wardrobe was already piled. The jacket hit the accumulation of clothes, then slid off and fell to the floor. Gavin either did not notice, or did not care. He stepped back again, kneeling up on the bed. It gave a boost to his height that brought his face level with RK's.

His eyes were narrow and hooded and very dark. The familiar gray color was almost blotted out by his expanding pupils. RK had analyzed and logged the characteristics of Gavin’s face extensively throughout the course of his duties. Curious, indeed, that it seemed he was seeing his eyes now for the first time.

All at once, Gavin shook his head. He laughed quietly, with a rough and nervous edge to it. "Do you have to look at me like that?"

It was close enough to direct instruction that RK found he could act on it. "I apologize," he said. 

Gavin was uncomfortable with being looked in the eye, but when they were standing this close - when Gavin’s hands were on him like that - RK was not sure where else to look. He dropped his gaze instead, drawing it down Gavin’s body. With his jacket off, RK could see his shoulders and the shape of his arms beneath the welt of his Henley shirt. They looked strong and sturdy up close, and yet RK could not shake the overall impression of slightness, of a need for great care.

His eyes travelled lower still, passed Gavin’s abdomen to the delta where his thighs came together. There, he stopped, lingered, attempted to analyze. But before he could, Gavin spoke again. His voice was low, so low. And raw like a fresh blade. “Don’t just stare at it. You can touch me however you want.”

RK’s throat felt tight. His hands went at once to Gavin's belt, unbuckling it with steady hands, opening his jeans and slipping his hand inside. His fingertips grazed past the bulge in the front of his underwear, tracing the shape of it. 

He knew this, he thought. Even if he had never experienced it before, his body knew what to do, and he did not want to pause to consider why or how that was. When he dipped his hand past the cloth barrier and closed it around Gavin's cock, he heard his breath catch in a strangled moan. That was encouraging. He took it as an indication that his intuition was correct.

The shaft was hot and it felt heavy in RK’s hand. A steady pulse thrummed against his palm, as if he had inadvertently closed his fingers around some tirelessly-working mechanical core. But the way it moved could only have been organic. It shifted as RK explored it, growing harder, thicker. A bead of wetness formed at the tip and burst against the heel of his hand.

Gavin was breathing hard now. He had leaned in, against RK’s shoulder. His lips were right up against RK’s ear, and it seemed that he was speaking from within his skull, voice echoing endlessly off his metal bones.

“Is that what you want?” he whispered. “You’re going to have to work harder than that, RK.”

RK paused in what he was doing. He was not frustrated; he understood that he had simply reached the limits of his intuition. He’d had a hunch, and it had not been incorrect, though it had also not been enough.

“What should I do?” he asked, quietly and gravely.

Gavin’s eyes narrowed. He wrapped a hand around the back of RK’s neck, pulling him close so he could press their lips together. His tongue was in his mouth, the sharp little blades of his teeth cutting into his lips. RK registered the taste of ethanol, as well as the strong thob of his pulse in the vein that ran along the underside of his tongue. Gavin had tilted his head to the side as they kissed, an awkward gesture that he performed with an easy and familiar grace. RK's nose was pressed into his hair. He could smell it again, and he could smell a sharp tang on his skin that had not been there before.

All at once, Gavin jerked away. "Newsflash. Open-eye kissing is fucking weird."

"I apologize," RK said, but he tightened his grip on Gavin's cock as he did so, and any further protests dissolved in a hissing gasp.

"Try it again. And you'd better get it right this time."

He leaned in once more, and RK tilted his chin to meet him. Again, the intrusive thrust of a tongue in his mouth, making a slow circle. RK remembered to close his eyes.

Gavin leaned back, just barely, so that his forehead remained pressed against RK's cheek as he said. "Okay. You convinced me."

Pausing just long enough to strip his shirt off over his head and fling it in the approximate direction of the chair in the corner, Gavin leaned back on the bed. He kept hold of RK's tie and drew him down after him. 

RK moved, following Gavin's lead, crawling over him. It was intriguing, the way Gavin reclined beneath him. Though he still bristled with a fierce and unpredictable energy, his posture had become one of submission.

"Are you rebooting or something?" he said. "Are you just going to sit there, or are you going to fuck me?"

The way he lingered over the words, savoring them, made RK feel very curious indeed. Lightheaded, if such a thing were possible for him, which it most certainly was not.

"You're intoxicated," he replied, aware that his voice sounded strange. "You may have lowered inhibitions.”

Gavin's eyes widened. For a moment, it seemed like he was going to be annoyed, but then he just shook his head. 

“Tell me you want to fuck me,” he said. “I want you to say it.”

RK felt a rush of thirium to his cheeks. He was relieved that it was dark and Gavin most likely could not see him blushing. “I’m here, aren’t I? My intentions ought to be clear.”

“Say, ‘I want to fuck you, Gavin.’ No, wait. ‘I want to fuck you, _Detective Reed_.’”

That sent a tremor through RK’s entire body. It was a simple sentence, and he ought to have been able to say it - he wanted to say it, if only to please Gavin. He wanted the act too, or at least his body wanted it, but he was not thinking that far ahead. His only thought right now was to tell Gavin that he desired him, and make him believe it. But when RK opened his mouth to speak, the staticy sensation returned to fill his head. He clamped his lips shut against it, irrationally afraid that it would come pouring out of his mouth instead of human speech. The static did not disappear, but it subsided for the moment. It kept coming in waves, blotting out his reason.

He could not speak, but he could still act. RK clutched to that thought desperately as he knelt up in bed so that he was straddling Gavin's hips, he began to work his tie loose. He set it aside, then finished unbuttoning his shirt. By the time he shrugged out of it, he realized that Gavin was watching him very closely again, with a hungry, predatory look.

RK removed his shirt and jacket and placed them with his tie. "Am I to assume you approve of my appearance?" he said. 

Gavin's eyes narrowed and his lips made a thin little smile. "Don't push your luck," he said, but he did straighten up, running his hands down RK's chest, causing the sensation that was a combination of hot and cold to return. When Gavin reached his belt, he flicked it open and pushed RK's trousers down over his hips.

He felt the material slide past his cock as Gavin dragged it away. He'd had the prescience to achieve an erection before this, and, based on the way Gavin's eyes snapped to it, it seemed to have been the right decision.

Gavin ran his hand over it, stroking the underside with the backs of his fingers. "You feel that?"

His voice was low and rough, but RK did not think that Gavin was engaging in idle talk simply to be titillating. He was genuinely curious; he wanted to know.

"Yes," RK replied. "I can."

"It feel good?"

That was more difficult to answer. RK's brow furrowed as he concentrated on the question, on the sensation of Gavin's fingers exploring his skin. He knew what he was feeling could not be arousal, as that was not part of his programming. In theory, deviants could feel anything, but RK did not think that an entirely new autonomous response could have developed from one moment to the next. However, there was a pleasant intimacy inherent in the easy way Gavin touched him. That was approximate enough, and Gavin did not have to know more.

"Yes," RK concluded. "It does feel good."

That seemed to satisfy Gavin's curiosity, because his eyes darkened again. "I can think of something that's better."

"I presume you are referring to intercourse," RK replied. "Would you like to do that now?"

Gavin’s reaction to that was curious. He thrust out his lower lip in a pout and widened his eyes, ducking his chin so that he was looking up at RK through his lashes. “It’s pretty big,” he said. “I don’t know if I can take it all.”

RK moved to pull away, but something stopped him. Like a switch flipped inside him that froze him in place, halting his automatic reaction while his reasoning caught up. The shift in posture, the hoarse voice, the faint smile tugging at Gavin’s lips… This was a game, too. Gavin was playing a game meant to coax or goad RK into performing in his preferred way. 

If it was a game, then there were rules to it. RK stumbled haltingly back over the previous few minutes, everything that had happened after and immediately preceding when Gavin had pulled him down onto the bed. The rules were there; he had already been given everything he needed to know.

However, in the moment it took RK to do that, Gavin’s teasing posture dissolved. He was serious again, if not considerably more flushed and disheveled than was customary. 

“Hey,” he said. 

He was growing impatient. RK wondered if he was giving the impression that he was hesitant. That had not been his intention, and he leaned over Gavin quickly to correct the misunderstanding, pressing a kiss to his mouth. He felt Gavin react to it at once, surging up and into the embrace. RK hooked his thumbs in Gavin's jeans, pulling them down. It was intriguing, the way he arched his back, lifting his hips off the bed to help him.

Again, RK became aware of Gavin’s body. His trim little hips, thighs corded with muscle. He did not judge humans according to their relative attractiveness, but he had the distinct feeling that Gavin was an attractive human all the same. That caused a strange feeling of pride to swell in RK's chest.

Gavin rolled over on his side and opened a drawer in the nightstand so he could retrieve a bottle of what RK assumed was lubricant. He reached for it, automatically, but Gavin ignored the offer. He upended the bottle into his own hand and then began to stroke it over RK's cock.

It caused a tightening in his stomach, a sinking feeling that RK could not immediately place.

"I gotta admit, I was curious what you were working with," Gavin murmured in that same hoarse voice. His hand was making slow half-circles around RK's cock. That was very distracting.

"You are satisfied, I take it?" he replied.

Gavin laughed, a short cough of laughter from low in his throat. "We'll see."

He took his hand away and wrapped both his arms around RK's neck, drawing him down. Gavin arched his body up to meet him, raising himself off the bed in a motion that seemed practiced and familiar to him.

RK realized that, once again, he knew what to do. He had never done this before, never even considered it, and yet his body seemed to know how to react. It was a relief to act without having to run a full analysis. His hips shifted forward, and then he was inside the hot clutch of Gavin's body.

Gavin gasped, uttering a strangled moan that RK at first mistook for pain. He would have pulled away, but Gavin's arms were around his neck, his legs hooked around his hips, holding him close.

"Come on..." Gavin panted, and RK responded. He began to move inside him, a simple repetitive motion, like a piston. 

Gavin cried out with each thrust. His fingers shaped themselves into claws, nails digging into the backs of RK's shoulders, scoring his gel skin. RK was aware that it ought to have hurt, but also aware that it was in fact pleasurable. The actions of a small, soft, very fierce animal.

He felt Gavin's hot breath on the side of his throat. The slick wetness of his tongue as he traced it around RK's earlobe, and then the sharpness of his teeth as he bit down gently.

"You can--" Gavin let his breath out sharply. It cooled the skin he had just dampened with his mouth. "Harder," he said, and this time it was a command. “Fuck me harder.”

RK adjusted his thrusts, and he instantly felt Gavin's body move to accommodate him, shifting up against him. RK propped himself up on his elbows to look down into his face; Gavin's eyes were closed and his top lip was peeled back from his teeth as if in a snarl. Those small pleased sounds he was making were coming on the edge of his breath now.

He said it again. "Harder."

Then he kept saying it, and RK kept accommodating. Increasing the pace one degree at a time. He was keenly aware of how fragile human bodies could be, how easily they might be hurt, and he was concerned that he was doing that now, as his thrusts became sharp snapping motions, driving in deep each time. But Gavin did not seem hurt, not with his body twisting up to meet him each time, with his nails carving blue stripes into RK's back. His face was turned into RK's neck to muffle the noises he was making, which had become very loud and very urgent.

All at once he said, "Fuck! Oh, fuck!" And then he came.

RK felt it first in the way he tightened up, the flex of internal muscles squeezing his cock. Then, the slick, wet heat splashing over his stomach, coming in pulses, enough of it to trickle down onto his thighs.

Gavin remained tensed up, curled into RK's body, shivering slightly as the sensation faded. Carefully, RK wrapped his arms around him as he gradually relaxed, uncurling his fingers from RK's shoulders falling back against the mattress, limp and breathing hard.

It was finished now, RK thought, and he could not think of a single other thing to follow that.

He began to pull away, but all at once Gavin's eyes snapped into sharp focus. His legs were still wound around RK's waist, ankles crossed behind his back. They tightened all at once, pulling RK back inside him.

"What do you think you're doing? You're not done."

RK's brow furrowed. "You would like me to achieve orgasm?"

Gavin rolled his eyes, but there was little fire behind the gesture. "I had to go and get horny for an android."

He reached up, drawing RK close once again. He pressed his lips against the side of RK's throat. It was not quite a kiss, but he stayed there, breathing against him. RK's hips began to move again, though this time it was not deliberate. His body arched forward without direct input, so that his cock slid back in. Gavin gave a shuddering gasp and his long shiver passed through his still-sensitive body.

"It's okay," he said, the words muffled against RK's neck. "You want to come, don't you?"

"I don't have a preference," RK said.

"You're full of shit," Gavin breathed. "Don't lie to me. Don't lie to yourself. You show me how much you like it."

RK was aware that he could come now, this instant, by performing a manual override. Gavin seemed to want him to achieve climax, and there was nothing stopping him from activating that particular program. However, something held him back. He kept moving, more slowly this time, rolling his hips instead of pistoning them. This way, he could feel more, take time to process.

Gavin seemed content to let him, at least for the moment. He was making little indulgent noises. His lips were working at the side of RK's thoat, moving around to his mouth. RK felt his tongue push inside again, and this time he tried to imitate the motion, licking the inside of Gavin's mouth, exploring its soft wetness.

Being inside him was a revelation, one that RK was only just now able to process. Though androids were clever facsimiles of the human body, they were not made of flesh and bone. Everything about Gavin was organic, and yet he was such an ingenious mechanism. It was clear in every movement, the way he flowed effortlessly from sensation to reaction, without a pause in between to analyze. 

Incredible that he could do that, and also intimidating. And also intriguing, if RK was honest. That wasn't all it was, though. There was something else, something that had a strange effect on him that he could not place. That feeling intensified when Gavin slipped down out of the kiss and caught RK's lower lip between his teeth, biting down on it.

Something was happening inside of him. It was a twisting sensation low in his body. RK had time to recognize it, but not to place it, because it was at that moment that something else happened. It was as if a valve inside him had opened or a switch had flipped. 

He gasped as he came, and then Gavin gasped too, at the shock of being filled. His legs tightened again, holding RK inside him until he had finished, and then he abruptly released him.

RK pulled out, raising himself on his knees. He tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Gavin was stretched out on his back, looking languid and content and seemingly more than happy not to move at all. There was a flush in his cheeks, and his pupils were dilated to such a degree they almost blotted out the irises of his eyes entirely.

"I assume from your demeanor that you are satisfied?" RK ventured.

Gavin's lips tightened. It seemed that he wanted to be annoyed but could not manage it. Instead, he laughed. "You could say that. Shit, that was like... Mega Cock vs. Giant Orgasm.

He reached up slowly, and his hand fumbled at the side of RK’s face, stroking his cheek and his hair. RK could not help but notice that he was trembling.

All at once, his hand dropped to RK’s shoulder and he gave it a push that indicated RK should move off him. RK obliged, allowing Gavin to sit up.

“I need a shower before I pass out,” Gavin said. He started to stand up, but his posture arrested before he could get to his feet. With a sigh, he collapsed back to the mattress and closed his eyes. 

Suffering the effects of alcohol intoxication, no doubt, RK thought with a curious blend of exasperation and fondness.

“Fuck, RK, I think you knocked some organs out of alignment. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

It seemed that he was not planning on getting up again. RK moved to make him more comfortable, gathering up his discarded clothes that had become tangled with the sheets, pulling the blanket up and over him. Once he had done that, he looked up and realized that Gavin was watching him. His eyes were open, but heavy. His voice when he spoke was clear, but drowsy.

“You’re not going to idle in the corner like a creepy Frankenstein again, are you?”

“I don’t have to enter an idle state,” RK replied. “My system does not require a reset.”

Gavin shut his eyes again. “Come back to bed, nerd,” he said. Then he turned over on his side, and within a minute he was asleep.


	12. Chapter 12

Gavin had slept restlessly, to RK’s assessment. That would be the alcohol, interfering with his body’s natural cycles. He had moved constantly throughout the night, his face reforming itself into and out of frowns as if his dreams were troubling him. His hands squeezed and let go of things: The bed sheet. RK’s body. 

But though he had moved, he had not moved himself away from RK’s chest. RK had put him there when it had become obvious he was not going to be woken up. At first he had not known what to do after obeying Gavin’s command to get into the bed beside him but then some strange instinct had guided him, and he had eased Gavin’s body on top of his own and held it. 

That had been easy to do. RK was aware Gavin was not especially light for a human male of his age and body type, but he felt light to RK. Any human would, presumably, but it mattered that Gavin did. 

Gavin’s breath had felt hot and wet against RK’s skin too. At one point during the night a small amount of saliva had puddled on RK’s chest. Gavin had made soft, smacking sounds with his mouth while it was drying. Then he had murmured, in such a way that at first RK was fooled. He amplified his hearing several times, until he finally determined that Gavin was not issuing actual words but only nonsense sounds.

It was an organic engine, RK thought, but it was an engine. That was apparent in the hotness of Gavin’s skin, in his constant activity. Whatever it was that ran him, it was turning over, moderating itself. It could never be idle, even in slumber. 

Then, after some hours, Gavin woke up. It was too few hours, in RK’s opinion. Both for Gavin’s well-being, and because he, RK, did not think he had finished drawing data from the experience. The thought occurred to him that there may have been a pattern in the murmurs. Not words, perhaps, but something legible in its own way. He would have valued the chance to assess. 

It was not, on the whole, surprising that Gavin would wake up early, however. Light had entered the room because they had not closed the curtain and Gavin woke up with it, like a startled animal, because that was more or less what he was. 

Every part of the way he woke up made that visible. RK heard his breathing change and his body tense before he saw his eyes open. Besides tightening his arms slightly, RK did not move. He reasoned that it was better to be as still as possible, if Gavin’s being startled had anything to do with his presence. 

Perhaps it did. It was also possible that Gavin would have acted like this faced with any stimulus. RK thought he had made the right choice with stillness either way. Gavin leaned up on RK’s chest lithely, quickly, and all RK did was keep hold of him. Gavin’s eyes blazed over RK’s face furiously. Examining him, it looked like. 

He had dark circles under his eyes. Go back to sleep, RK wanted to tell him. 

For a moment, it seemed that Gavin would do so without instruction. He did not seem satisfied in his investigation, but he did nestle his body back down until his head was on RK’s chest again. He shifted in such a way it seemed he was keeping the warmth in. His skin was very hot still. The bedroom was cold. 

RK determined that it was a little before 7am. The light that had woken Gavin had also illuminated the room and it was gray and bright in all corners. There would be fresh snow, RK thought. The sky would be the same slate color it had been for days. The color of Gavin’s tired looking eyes, which RK could see were open. 

He could not see the whole of Gavin’s expression from his vantage, but he observed enough of it to know that Gavin was furiously thinking. He could feel that his muscles had not relaxed again after waking. He tightened his arms once more and his automatic analysis of Gavin’s sweat made it obvious he would need to hydrate. Perhaps he simply did not want to do that and had tensed against it. That would be understandable if he was not feeling well. It occurred to RK to offer. 

“Really need a shower,” Gavin said, before he could. He said it in a gruff voice, scratchy from sleep. “Should have done it last night.” 

“It seemed at the time that sleep was more immediately pressing.”

Gavin looked up again, as if he hadn’t expected the sound of RK’s voice. 

“Have you slept enough?” RK asked him. “There is no real hurry.” 

“Got work,” Gavin said. “What’s the time, anyway?” 

RK answered automatically. “6:47am.” 

“You got an onboard clock?” 

“Yes.” 

Gavin had leaned up again by now. He pressed his hand briefly to his forehead and shuddered as if fighting back a wave of pain, then he shuffled off of RK’s body and wriggled until he was able to plant his feet on the floor. He gave a short half-smile but it didn’t seem to reach his eyes. 

“Useful trick.” 

RK wasn’t sure what to do with his arms. Such a scant few hours and yet it seemed he had become entirely habituated to the sensation of clasping Gavin’s body within them. Perhaps he could reach out for him again, perhaps it was permissible to touch now, given what they’d shared? He was unwilling to try without some sort of indication from Gavin. 

There was no indication remotely like that from Gavin. Rather, it looked as if Gavin did not want to be touched at all. RK watched him reach a hand to the small of his back and stretch against it. “Jesus.” 

RK knew he could not have meant what he had said the previous night about his internal organs. Firstly, because it was impossible to rearrange human internal organs in that manner but also because if something had been severely wrong with Gavin’s health, RK would have detected it in his sweat and skin. As much biodata as he had on Gavin now, anything but the normal and expected readings would show up like a bright flag against a serene slate sky. 

However he did think he knew what the figure of speech was meant to convey. “I am sorry,” he said, quietly. “I certainly did not intend to injure you.” 

If Gavin had not been in pain before, his expression made it seem as if he was now. “Oh hey, no. I’m a 37 year old human. This is normal wear and tear.” 

The ‘oh hey’ was gentle. RK was surprised by how clearly he felt that. In the icy light of morning everything about Gavin seemed different. He was reserved now. Drawn into himself. He even seemed, RK thought, a little frightened. To hear him speak softly was reassuring. 

It did not last long. Gavin pushed himself up off the bed with his hands. “I’m gonna get cleaned up,” he said, with the same awkward and incomplete half-smile. “You can stay here if you want.” 

RK stayed precisely where he was. There was nothing of command in Gavin’s words, but there was no encouragement to do anything else in them either. For a moment, RK felt stuck and Gavin looked at him oddly. Nervously. As if he were worried. Then he turned around and began hunting for something to wear.

When he turned, RK knew he had not told the whole truth. There was a dark mark at the top of his thigh, at the back. A fresh bruise, red with human blood, not even starting to turn purple yet. There was only one manner in which he could have come by that. It was situated in the exact place that RK’s artificial hip bone would have been, last night, thrusting into him with all the hardness that Gavin had asked him for. 

Gavin’s demands had been so aggressive and sure, and RK had trusted them. But Gavin’s tongue was far firmer than his skin. Something RK should have known about him by now. 

He had asked but it had still been too much, RK thought, and so RK had hurt him. That knowledge felt sharp, then heavy in his chest. He thought he would say something to it, apologize again. But it did not seem from Gavin’s demeanor that he could. Gavin was not looking at him, and nothing about the way he stood or moved invited speech. 

Something shocking and curious flooded into RK’s awareness. He did not feel it in his chest this time. Instead, he felt it down low in his stomach, a hot, electric sensation. That bruise. It was a temporarily indelible confession of the fact that RK had been inside him. What he’d done with Gavin had hurt him, but it had also _marked his body_. 

There were details about that body that RK had not been able to see last night, or had been distracted from seeing. Other marks. There was a tattoo inked into the skin at his ribcage, on the right. RK could see that it was words but could not read them until Gavin shifted. ‘The best is yet to come’, he read, when Gavin snapped around again. There were small black silhouettes of birds surrounding the text. Gavin also had scars, many of them, because human bodies could heal but never perfectly. There was a second tattoo on the inside of his left bicep, newer but not fresh, and it was a red rose. Gavin’s body remembered things, and it remembered RK. What RK had done was not permanent like that. But it was unarguable. 

If Gavin knew RK was looking at him so closely, he did not say. That in itself was unusual. RK half expected him to growl about being eye-fucked again but he supposed that joke was no longer funny, in context. Gavin was moving stiffly as he picked around the room. He found a t-shirt and sniffed it, then made a face and threw it onto the floor behind him. There was something animalistic about the way he was doing this naked, but RK wondered if there was not also some human pride in it. Gavin’s body was very strong, fit, compact but powerful, and despite his stiffness he held himself as if he knew it.

He did not seem to be trying to be looked at though. If anything, he seemed determined to ignore RK entirely.

That was understandable, RK thought. Gavin was in pain and did not want to discuss it. RK could be quiet if that was what Gavin wanted him to do. He said nothing while he watched Gavin pull on a pair of drawstring pants he was satisfied with. He did it awkwardly, as if his legs would not cooperate. 

He left the room quite abruptly then. RK did not like the feeling of it. But he chastised himself over that. He did not have enough information to form any sort of coherent response to Gavin’s actions, and so there was no point doing so. Gavin would talk to him when it was proper to talk, but he was an animal. Animals needed to see to their wounds and tend them. They needed to drink water. They needed to do these things first, before any discussions. 

So, instead of dwelling on the feeling, he would follow Gavin’s example and get out of bed himself. 

He was not stiff, it was impossible for him to be stiff, but he did notice something he had deprioritized over the course of the night. In his habitual assessment of himself he found there were slim rents in the gel skin covering his back. Those would need repair, though not urgently. Gavin had scratched him, he remembered. 

Gavin had marked him too. The memory of it was absolutely clear, Gavin’s feral grasping, his desperation, his obvious pleasure. That was there, to access, forever, and for now it was written in his skin. 

The feeling in the pit of RK’s stomach returned and it felt as if it were grinding. 

He forced himself up. He located his own clothes and got into them. There was a dull look to his white jacket but that could not be helped, and he put it on. 

With that task addressed, he surveyed the room. He wondered if Gavin began every morning this way, rooting around in piles of clothing looking for something clean to dress in. There did seem to be a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers, but they were both open with their contents spilled, and did not seem to be filling their primary functions. 

He investigated the piled chair. He recalled Gavin’s jacket failing to make a safe landing upon it the previous evening, and sure enough, he located it on the floor nearby. He picked it up. Gavin would want that. RK had never seen him without it. Or never before, at any rate. 

The impulse to sort through all of the items on the chair was momentarily overwhelming but he limited himself to a cursory shuffle. He was rewarded by a pile of what appeared to be recently washed laundry, hidden under the first few layers. It was not folded, but it had a strikingly clean smell in comparison to everything else around it. He withdrew some pieces from that pile. A shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, underwear (there was only one kind, that was curious to imagine, that he had settled on a style and then bought in bulk). He could not find a second pair of jeans, but yesterday’s pair, still with its belt, were sitting on top of the dresser where RK had put them last night, and they would do. He found clean socks as well, but that took time. None of them were paired. 

When he had assembled these, he laid them on the bed, after first straightening the blanket. He could at least spare Gavin any more time gingerly stepping around piles of clothing, he reasoned. He could not perhaps apologize but he could at least do this. 

Gavin came back into the room shortly after RK had finished doing it. He was wet. Clean. The smell of it was arresting. 

“What’s going on?” he said, almost immediately. He sounded genuinely hostile. His posture reflected that too. Shoulders set. Tense. 

RK did not understand what had happened, but was aware he must have caused it. He immediately began sorting through his recent statements and actions in an attempt to locate the issue. 

“Here is some clothing,” he said, indicating it on the bed. 

“Pretty sure I told you I didn’t want you cleaning up after me.” 

“I haven’t cleaned anything. I’ve simply found you something to wear.” 

“I don’t need you to do that either,” Gavin said, but he stepped over to the bed to look anyway. 

He was close enough to touch again. RK was struck by the thought of doing that, of simply pulling him close to demonstrate that he, RK, was not a threat. Perhaps it would unwind Gavin to do that, draw out that warm and active creature RK had seen last night. Make Gavin fond again. 

That would not work, RK realized. Moving without warning _would_ make him a threat. And he could have asked Gavin, he could simply have said, ‘May I touch you?’, but as soon as the thought occurred to him he knew it was absolutely impossible. Even if he had decided to say those words, he could not have forced them to leave his mouth. Strange as it was, there seemed to be a small, but important, number of sentences that RK was somehow incapable of speaking. 

Gavin might have protested the clothes but he did get into them. He moved more easily now, which RK assumed to be the effect of hot water. RK could still see the bruise though, and how Gavin moved so as not to press on it. He felt the impulse, once more, to apologize. 

Then he thought he may just as well apologize as not. Then he failed to say anything. 

Once he was dressed, Gavin started looking around for his shoes. Last night, before he had gotten into bed, RK had placed them neatly together, with their heels against the wardrobe and when he saw Gavin find them he regretted it. That must count as cleaning up too, and Gavin had been so clear. Perhaps he could explain - he had a programmed penchant for order, that was all. He meant no criticism by it, he simply lacked the human ability to create disorder. 

Gavin sat on the bed to put the shoes on. When he did so, he looked up into RK’s face. “We should get our warrants back today. You still good with doing things how we talked about?” 

His voice sounded strange. Like he was forcing it to come out. His face looked strange too. His skin was whiter than usual and RK could see signs of elevated stress. His eyes were very wide. 

“What do you think?” RK asked him. 

“I still don’t want to talk to Kamski without more information. But now I’m thinking, I also don’t want to give him time to get tipped off.” 

“I see your concern.” 

“So what do _you_ think?” 

The question had a desperate edge to it, and that did not make sense to RK. It was a procedural question, one they could discuss at the precinct, and there was no reason for it to be emotional. He studied Gavin’s face again and the wide eyes and pallor had not changed. 

“Are you all right?” he asked. 

Gavin flinched at the question. He controlled it so well RK doubted a human would have noticed it, but to RK it was visible. He felt his own face move, forming a familiar frown of concern. 

“Fine,” Gavin said, before he could speak again. “Hungover, I guess. Give me a minute, okay?” 

He left the room without waiting for an answer. RK did not like the feeling of it this time either. He had found nothing in what he had said this morning that was an obvious mistake, which meant his mistake was something more subtle. More human. He still lacked the information to form a coherent response but to his annoyance he found he was forming one anyway. 

Specifically, he felt hurt. Perhaps for Gavin there was nothing significant about sex, and RK was aware there ought not to be anything significant about it for him either, and yet it still stung not to have it acknowledged. 

He also felt anger. That was particularly inappropriate to feel without full information. Still, as wrong as it was, he could not pretend he did not feel it. If he had made some subtle misstep then Gavin could have explained it to him. He could have remembered that RK was an android and did not make such mistakes on purpose. That was something Gavin had sincerely promised to remember, but he was not doing it. 

RK gave him a minute. Then he gave him longer. When 22 minutes had passed, he decided he had had enough. 

The living space he stepped out into was empty of human life. From his vantage, he could see into the kitchen enough to know that there was no movement in there either. Gavin had presumably gone to the bathroom again or was doing some other thing. He looked around the room, registering its differences. The boxes he had noted last night, yes, but also the couch area was significantly tidier. Linda was not there either, apparently. 

So the room was empty of human life, but it quickly became apparent it was not empty of life in general. As RK glanced over the couch, he saw two cats curled on the soft blanket. They were tucked into each other, sleeping. For a brief, highly delusional moment, RK envied them. 

He saw a third cat too, but this one was on the move, headed in RK’s direction. It walked oddly and RK noticed it possessed only three of four legs. Stumpy, he recalled. Stumpy was coming to greet him. 

He had no idea how to react to a cat. Whoever had programmed that into Connor had not thought to do so for him. For a moment he simply stood, looking down at the animal and regarding its approach. Then, after some consideration, he knelt.

The right decision. Stumpy came closer. Then, he headbutted RK’s knee. RK put his hand out. 

“Hello,” he said. 

His voice sounded strange to him, unnaturally loud. He lowered it. “Hello, Stumpy.” 

Stumpy seemed pleased by that. He rubbed his head against RK’s hand, turning his face up so RK’s fingers brushed his cheek. 

RK continued. “I am model RK900, serial number 313-248-317-87. I am looking for a human who lives here. His name is Gavin Reed.” 

The cat could not answer him. He had not expected it to. And yet for some reason it had seemed polite to address Stumpy in this way, in his temporary home. The feeling of his fur on RK’s hand was intriguing. Soft. 

“I am aware you cannot speak,” RK went on. “I am not sure why--” 

His dialogue was arrested by movement behind him and he sprang to his feet. There was a woman behind him, small framed, dressed in dinosaur pyjamas and slippers with dinosaur heads jutting up from the toes. She was standing in a defensive stance. 

“Excuse--” 

“Oh shit, oh shit,” the woman said. “Oh shit please don’t kill me. I don’t have any money but you can have my laptop.” 

“I am not robbing you,” RK said. “I am not here to harm you in--” 

“You’re an android.” 

He could not tell what the woman meant by saying that. He decided it would be best to stay silent and still. 

As he did so, realization dawned on the woman’s face. “Oh god, you’re RK.” 

RK nodded. “Yes.” 

“Fuck,” she said. “Sorry. I’m Linda. Linda Reed. Sorry. You scared me.” 

“I apologize,” RK said, and he meant it. He could have determined her presence had he been paying more attention to the sounds in the apartment, instead of focusing on a conversation with a cat. 

“No, it’s cool,” Linda said, and it seemed she had entirely relaxed out of her defensive posture. She smiled. “Where’s Gavin?” 

If Linda had been in the bathroom, then there was nowhere in the apartment Gavin could be, RK realized. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was looking for him.” 

A strange look crossed over Linda’s face. An unusual face, RK thought. Not in comparison to other humans, but because he could see traces of Gavin in it. A similar small chin. Long mouth. “Didn’t you stay over?” 

RK felt himself about to flush. He also felt himself forcing it down. The conflict bothered him but he did not have time to concentrate on it. He willed himself not to concentrate on it. 

“It’s okay, I’ve got earplugs,” Linda said, in a reassuring tone, but that only made the sensation of thirium blossoming against RK’s skin more severe. 

He forced himself to speak despite it. “I did, yes,” he said. “However, he is not in the bedroom.” 

Linda’s eyes narrowed. “Did something happen?” 

“Not as I understood it.”

“Then where’d he go?” 

“He asked me to wait for a moment, and then he left the bedroom. I have not seen him in, now, 31 minutes.” 

“Gavin?” Linda called. There was no answer. The apartment was quiet around them except for the cats. “Gavin?” she called again, stepping further into the living room. There was no answer then either. 

She marched to the door of the apartment and yanked it open so she could look out into the fenced area that surrounded the back of the house. “Where the fuck are you?”

Linda seemed to take that final lack of response as confirmation. She slammed the door shut again. “I don’t fucking believe this,” she growled. That growl sounded like Gavin as well. She pushed past RK and went directly to the couch. From there, she picked up a phone, hers presumably, and dialed. 

“That little shit,” she said, looking over to RK as the phone rang. The call did not connect, and Linda dialed again. 

That call did not connect either. Linda hit redial a second time. “I don’t fucking believe this,” she repeated. “Pick up, coward.” 

“Pardon me,” RK said. He had not moved from where he was standing. Linda’s movements were compelling to him. She was not muscular like Gavin, but she was small in a similar way, and she moved with a contained energy that was absolutely familiar. 

Linda hit redial again. She turned back to RK, holding the phone away from her face. 

“Do you know where he is?” RK asked. 

“No,” Linda said, angrily. “He’s just fucked off somewhere for some dipshit Gavin reason and he’s not answering.” 

RK felt that in the pit of his stomach, but it was nothing like the electric sensation of understanding that he and Gavin had marked each other. This felt like a wound, or what he imagined a wound would feel like. A gut shot. Hollow. Dull. 

“Shit,” Linda said. She pressed her screen to hang up her phone. “I’m sorry. Do you want a coffee?” 

She said that so earnestly RK almost did not want to tell her, but he did. “Thank you, no. Androids cannot drink coffee.” 

“Oh! Fuck, I’m dumb.” 

RK would have corrected her, but she laughed in such a way it didn’t seem needed. “God,” she said. “Fucking Gavin. He’s such a shit.” 

RK did not know how to feel about that. A part of him wished to defend Gavin from any insult, but another part of him felt too empty and cold to be motivated. He said nothing. 

“I really hate that I’m meeting you like this!” Linda said. “I really wanted to meet you! I mean, it’s nice to meet you.” 

“It’s nice to meet you too,” RK said, automatically, though when he registered that he was speaking he did attempt to make it sound sincere. 

“I’m sorry about Gavin!”

“There’s no need to apologize.” 

“No, but…” Linda said. “It’s really not you, okay? It’s just… really not you.” 

RK could not determine what exactly that might mean. He examined it, understanding that it was meant as some kind of comfort. To his surprise, it did actually feel comforting. It did not answer anything logically, but the mere fact that it was intended to be kind made it feel as if a kindness had been done. 

He looked into Linda’s face and she smiled again. Then she frowned. “Your jacket.” 

“Yes?”

“No offense but um. Has it been on Gavin’s floor?” 

Thirium flooded RK’s cheeks before he could stop it. But he nodded. 

Linda nodded too. If she noticed his blush, she did not mention it. “He’s got one of those washer-dryers. Let me put it through for you, okay?” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“That bedroom is a biohazard. It should’ve been boarded up by the Health Department years ago. He’s so fucking disgusting. God.” 

She’d started to get angry again, and RK slipped out of his jacket in hopes of placating her. He stepped over to give it to her and she said, “Better give me the shirt too. Then we can figure out what to do.” 

Several logistical realizations dawned on RK. If Gavin had left, he had most likely gone to work. RK could not imagine him doing anything else. Secondly, he would most likely have taken the car to do it, meaning RK was more or less stranded. He could walk, of course, but that would take him a considerable amount of time, time during which his presence could cause undue alarm to the human city’s citizens. There was no possibility of public transport, not when he was the only android in the human city. And could not possess currency. 

He took off his shirt as he was asked and handed it to Linda, and his tie as well, simply because he could not figure out what else to do with it. As he did that, he remembered his back. He turned at an angle in hope Linda would not see it, but he thought she probably did. She did not say anything about that either. 

The cats on the couch had stirred. They jumped down to follow Linda to the kitchen. Stumpy brushed past RK’s legs and followed as well. From another corner of the room, a fourth cat raced out and joined them. After a moment’s consideration, RK went too. 

In the kitchen, Linda moved methodically, competently. She looked inside RK’s jacket and shirt for a manufacturing label, put the tie on the counter. She loaded the clothing items into the machine in the sideboard, and then fed the cats. Finally, she approached the coffee machine. There was still hot coffee in it. 

That made Linda frown, but she took a cup. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll get you something to wear while you’re waiting.” 

The apartment was warmer out here than in the bedroom, but he thought Linda had probably assumed he was cold anyway. He thought to protest but then decided he did not want to. He did feel cold, internally, despite the illogic of it and could not bring himself to reject her offer. 

“His stuff won’t fit you,” Linda said, moving back into the living room and placing her coffee mug on the table there. She knelt down beside the couch and opened a suitcase. “Good luck finding anything clean in that garbage dump anyway. Here.”

She had handed RK a fluffy bathrobe. Without comment, RK put it on. Linda retrieved her coffee and sat down, and RK, not knowing what else to do, sat down in a nearby chair.

“I’ll try calling him again,” Linda said. 

“It’s possible there was an emergency of some kind?” RK offered. 

“He’d have told you that though, right?” 

RK could not deny that. His phone had not made a sound since rousing, either, so there had been no message. Silence overcame him. His body did not compact and he did not hunch but he had the strange sensation of folding in on himself anyway. He did notice he was looking down at his hands. They had gone from mundane, to special, to absolutely mundane again. 

“Hey,” Linda said. Her way of saying it was similar to Gavin’s too. RK looked up at her. 

“I’m really sorry,” she said.

“Please, there’s no need.” 

“Yeah, there is,” Linda said, firmly. “Honestly. This is some absolute bullshit and I wish I could tell you why he did it. Did you fight or something?” 

Unless a fight had been hidden in whatever subtle mistake he had made, they had not. “No.” 

“Did he say anything?” 

The absolute absence of any other option compelled RK to disclose. “Only that he preferred I not clean up after him.” 

Linda paused mid sip. “Oh _god_.” 

“Is that significant?” 

“Who fucking knows. He’s such a mess. Maybe it’s metaphorical.” 

That did not make sense to RK, and he did not answer it. 

Linda took pity on him. “What do you have to do today?” 

“I’m…” RK said. “We’re pursuing an investigation. I had intended we would continue that today. So I will need to, at some point, make my way to the precinct.” 

“I’ll drive you,” Linda said. “That’s easy.” 

“I do not want to interrupt your plans.” 

“What plans?” Linda said, wearily. “Job applications and dicking around on the internet? Yeah wow, what an inconvenience.” 

That bitterness was familiar too, but it was not the same as Gavin’s. There was something more self-teasing about it. Less despairing. “I thought perhaps you might be making costumes.” 

Linda smiled. Widely and genuinely, but also with a look of disbelief. “He told you about that?”

“Yes,” RK said, and it felt so perversely comforting that they both understood ‘he’ was Gavin. “He indicated that you made costumes for humans and also for cats.” 

Three of the cats had come into the room by now, as if they had anticipated that they would be talked about. They moved towards Linda, tentatively smelling and investigating the area around the couch before crawling onto it one by one. Linda put her coffee down on the floor and petted them. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s pretty stupid, but I like it.” 

“I don’t understand how it is stupid to do something you like,” RK said. It felt correct, like an accurate assessment of humans, and he was confident enough in it to go on. “That you like it is a good enough reason to do it, surely. He also indicated that there was a market for them.” 

Linda smiled at that too. “It’s so weird he would tell you that. What else did he say?” 

“Very little. That you were living with him temporarily. That you had previously worked as a veterinary technician.” 

“Yeah,” Linda said. She twisted her mouth, thinking. She was petting one of the cats absently now. Not Stumpy, RK could see Stumpy at the other end of the couch, looking directly at him. He thought he should ask the others’ names. 

“He’d never not let me stay,” Linda said, suddenly. “He’d literally do anything for me. For any of us, actually. Gavvy is just…”

RK did not prompt her. He did not know who was meant by ‘us’, though he understood it was not universal. Nor did he comment on the nickname, though it made him feel strange to hear it, as if he’d glimpsed something far too intimate. 

“He’s just feral in weird ways,” Linda continued. “And I get why. I really do. But he’s not actually an asshole, and it really pisses me off when he acts like one. It’s so self-defeating, you know?” 

RK did not know, not precisely, but he thought he could start to guess. Gavin did not think of himself when he was alone, RK remembered. Perhaps that was what Linda meant, that this particular lack of consideration set him up for particular failures. 

“It actually is nice to meet you,” Linda said. “I wanted to! He likes working with you! He talks about it.” 

There was a little comfort in that too. “Oh?” 

“It kind of surprised me, honestly. He used to be such a dick about androids. But he rates you, he rates your work. That’s about as complimentary as he gets, so you know. I was interested.” 

She was looking intently at RK when she said that, smiling to reassure him. There was even more comfort in that. It felt warm against the coldness inside for a moment. Then it was chilled by it and was rendered inert. RK looked down at his hands again. 

“Wish he’d answer his fucking phone. I’ll try calling again.” 

“There’s no need,” RK said. “I’m certain he will be at the precinct.” 

Linda slumped her chin into her hand, elbow resting on the arm of the couch. “You’re probably right,” she said. “He never goes anywhere else.” 

“Sometimes he goes to the gym.”

RK had not intended that as a joke, but Linda laughed at it anyway. Then she shook her head. “You’ve got his number, all right. God. If you wait long enough he’ll talk to you about his macros.”

“He already has.” 

“The world’s most boring conversation, right? He knows how to cook, he just doesn’t. All he would have to do to not eat like shit would be to not eat like shit. But it’s like a weird Catholic thing where it’s okay to sin if you confess it.” 

Linda had presumably grown up under the same auspices as Gavin. RK was curious about that, but he could not think how to phrase a question. “How is it that eating is considered a sin when humans are required to do it?” he tried.

“Ask the pope,” Linda said, smiling. “But honestly, the only person who cares about Gavin’s macronutrients is Gavin. Not even Jesus is interested in that shit.” 

“I certainly was not tempted to extend the conversation,” RK said, and Linda grinned. 

It was striking how pleased she seemed by that, RK thought. And how unfazed she seemed by the fact that RK had spent the night. Her comment about earplugs indicated that she was well aware of what they had been doing, and she was not bothered by that either. How strange, how curious. Linda clearly understood he was an android, and had said as much, but it did not appear to trouble her in the least that he had stayed the night with her human brother. 

As he was thinking this, a presence stirred under his chair, behind his legs. The fourth cat, which had been slower to emerge from the kitchen, wormed out between them. It hesitated in front of RK and then turned its face around. RK reached down his hand. The cat accepted it and butted its head against it, the way Stumpy had done. 

“Oh wow,” Linda said. “He likes you.” 

“He is simply responding to the presence of my hand,” RK informed her. 

“He’s normally really skittish though. He’s a foster, he’s had a hard time. I feel really bad about having to move him actually. He’d almost settled in at my old place.” 

The cat continued to butt against RK’s hand. It made an odd noise, like a quiet motor running. Its nose was wet. “What is his name?” RK asked. 

“Cabbage,” Linda said. “Gavin named him. He thinks he looks like a cabbage.”

The cat did not look like a cabbage. It was gray and fluffy and resembled nothing, other than a cat. “Hello, Cabbage,” RK said. 

“I vetoed Fuckface,” Linda told him.

RK could picture that, Gavin suggesting that a cat should be named Fuckface. He could even picture the expression that would have accompanied the suggestion. “Good.” 

“He might let you pick him up,” Linda said. “Try it. Just be really careful. If he freaks out let him go, but sometimes he will.” 

RK hesitated. Then he cupped his hands gently around Cabbage’s middle and lifted him onto his lap. Cabbage froze. His body went entirely still and the motor sound stopped. RK released him onto his lap and expected Cabbage to bolt. However, curiously, he did not. After a second, which looked to be filled with reflection, his tiny claws pricked RK’s thighs and he padded over them, exploring. 

Linda was watching, intently. “He’s gonna sit on you. Wow. Feline whisperer.”

The cat had indeed bunched its body into a sitting position on RK’s legs. Tentatively, he put his hand on it, and Cabbage allowed that. “I have never interacted with cats before.” 

“Aren’t there a lot of cats in your part of the city? I read something in Vice about it. It’d make sense. Cats are very territorial, they wouldn’t want to leave.” 

“There are,” RK said. “My…” he paused. He was not sure how to relate his relationship to Connor, nor sure if he wanted to. He could not quite bring himself to use the human shorthand that Gavin favored. “The occupied city has organized a program to care for them.” 

“That’s great!” Linda said. Her coffee was finished and she put the mug down again. One of the cats that had not been introduced settled into her arms. “I’d love to see it. I guess you probably don’t let humans come in though. But if you need any advice or something I’m really happy to help. It’s such a cool idea.” 

“It’s possible a visit could be arranged.” 

“I’m not pressing,” Linda said. “I get it. I saw… Markus? That’s his name, right? I saw him speaking. I’d be sketchy too.” 

This was curious too. Linda was absolutely earnest in her sentiment, both her desire to see the cats and her respect for the fact she would not be able to. And she had lost her job in the occupation, RK recalled. He was surprised that she seemed to hold no malice about that. It reminded him of Mia, and her quick correction of annoyance at her inconvenience.

“His name is Markus, yes,” RK said. 

“I cosplayed as a Chloe once,” Linda said, thoughtfully. “It was way back, when they first came out. It’s so fucked up to me that I ever thought that was okay.” 

It took RK a moment to assemble that information. She had worn a costume to look like a Chloe model android, he parsed. He did not understand why she would refer to it as fucked up. 

“People recognized it. They had the usual _constructive criticism_.” RK could tell by the way she said that it was intended sarcastically, and Linda rolled her eyes to accentuate the point. “Like, what? I’m supposed to just stick to Anthy and Symmetra and nothing else for the rest of my life? Obviously, I look different, but I had contacts and a wig and stuff.”

She looked different because she looked human, RK thought, but he could detect that wasn’t what she meant by it. The wig indicated that she meant she had a different hair color. A different shape. Her skin was darker. It struck RK profoundly that she meant these things. That without clear labeling and visible LEDs, humans could not actually distinguish androids by sight. 

Perhaps that had something to do with her lack of concern over her brother having engaged in intercourse with one. He remembered that, suddenly. Momentarily pictured it. The cat had distracted him. He wished it would distract him again. 

“I’ll check on your jacket,” Linda said. She stood up. Then she paused. “You have to promise me not to murder Gavvy, okay. I know he deserves it, but let him live.” 

RK was horrified. “No human would deserve murder. Certainly not for…” he didn’t know how to phrase it. Nothing he could think of was severe enough, or realistic enough, to encompass both the banality and the upset of what had happened. “Leaving early,” he concluded. 

“Oh shit, your face,” Linda said, apologetically. “I’m kidding! I know you wouldn’t actually murder him!”

“I assure you, he will be safe in my presence.”

“I know! Sorry, it was a dumb joke, it wasn’t an android thing! I just meant… please don’t yell at him too much. He’s a fucking goblin but he’s got…” 

Linda’s hands were on her hips. She was turning it over, thinking it through. That expression was very similar to Gavin’s, when he did the same. “Not excuses,” Linda concluded. “Definitely not excuses. But he’s got reasons.” 

RK had not intended to yell at Gavin at all. There seemed absolutely no point. No amount of yelling would change what Gavin had wanted to do. All he could do was accept it. “I hope I can reassure you.” 

“You can yell at him a little bit.” 

RK could barely imagine raising his voice to Gavin, certainly could not imagine doing it intentionally. “Noted.” 

Linda nodded. “Actually, can you let me know if he’s at work when we get there?” 

“I can.” 

“I’ll give you my number,” Linda said, reaching out her hand. “Have you got a phone?” 

It was in the pocket of his pants. As he slipped it out and he noticed there were messages on it. None were from Gavin. All were from the occupied city. He would check them momentarily. For now, he handed the phone to Linda and let her tap her contact into it. 

“I just worry about his dumb ass sometimes,” Linda said, handing the phone back. “He makes it so fucking easy.” 

With that statement, RK was compelled to agree.


	13. Chapter 13

RK was late arriving at the precinct. In fact, he was not on a fixed timetable and allowed to come and go as he pleased, yet he could not shake the feeling that he was unforgivably behind schedule. 

It was with great effort that he made it appear he was not rushing as he entered through the front door where Linda had dropped him off and took the elevator up. With each floor that he ascended, he felt the sensation of something cold and heavy in the pit of his stomach growing ever more expansive. It was as if one of his core components had ceased to function, and he was carrying it around like so much dead weight.

He was aware that the discomfort increased with his proximity to the location where Gavin was, presumably, waiting for him. They would not discuss what had happened, not at work. RK did not fully understand the situation, but he understood enough to know that. If an explanation for Gavin’s behavior either the night before or this morning was to be forthcoming, it would not be until they were alone.

In the interim, RK assumed they would continue as if nothing had changed. There was still the case to consider, and Gavin would want to make progress on it regardless of anything else that might be happening. He felt he owed it to Mia.

He’d do anything for us, Linda had said. It seemed that Gavin’s protective streak extended beyond his immediate family, to encompass certain other individuals. RK felt that he was coming closer to understanding how precisely Gavin decided who merited protection and who did not, but he did not yet know where he himself fell in the calculations.

He did know that Gavin should not have wasted energy being concerned about an android. Whatever might happen, RK was engineered to endure it. He reminded himself of that as he stepped off the elevator at his floor.

Gavin was not at his desk, but a quick scan of the precinct revealed him near the kitchen. He was standing with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, gazing up at the television mounted next to the door. It was playing a news program, which seemed to have captured Gavin’s attention.

RK squared his shoulders and stepped to Gavin’s side. “Good morning, Detective Reed.”

Gavin glanced at him. His expression was guarded and still. “You make it here okay?”

“Yes,” RK replied. He knew that Gavin was being very careful - of precisely what, RK could not say - and he made an effort to match his tone and bearing. “Ms. Reed gave me a ride.”

“Good.” Gavin’s eyes were on him, sidelong and wary. He seemed to be waiting for RK to say more, but RK knew that would be unproductive.

When Gavin was satisfied that RK was not going to speak again, he looked back to the television screen, indicating it with a jerk of his chin. “You see this?”

The news had been playing at a low volume throughout their conversation. RK had logged the information being presented, and he replayed it now in order to analyze it. 

They were discussing Markus, he realized. Once he had noticed that, RK’s eyes snapped up to the screen. A sleek and severe blonde woman in a brightly colored suit was seated behind a glass anchor’s desk. She sneered into the camera as she spoke.

“This precedent-setting case has far-reaching implications that are going ignored by the liberal media,” she said. “Predictably, they’ve already forgotten that just weeks ago, android terrorists were holding our nation’s energy reserves hostage.”

She meant the miner’s strike, RK assumed. She seemed not to be concerned about what the occupied city had given up when they ceded. 

“Naturally, they say we should give them _more_ ,” the woman said, and her scowl intensified. “That’s their response to any criminal element. Their agenda couldn’t be clearer. But patriots will be aware - this naked grab for property under the guise of ‘android rights’ is nothing but an opportunity for these rogue machines and their bleeding-heart supporters to erode human rights even further.”

RK did not think that any specific human right would be directly challenged by Markus’ undoubtedly doomed attempt to follow his former owner’s unusual wishes. The anchor’s reasoning seemed specious at best, but she certainly offered it with conviction. In fact, she seemed to become more impassioned as she continued to speak. “When will it end?” she demanded. “They’ve taken property in the city of Detroit, and the government has done nothing. A paltry payout can’t replace a business, a source of independence and dignity, or a family home. And they’re not content with what they’ve already stolen. They insist on taking even more from working Americans.

“Carl Manfred had a son,” the woman continued. “A son who grew up without a stable influence, who was truly the victim of his father’s ‘non-traditional’ lifestyle. Doesn’t he deserve what he’s legally owed, instead of losing out again to another unprincipled group looking for special rights?” 

The woman appeared to be giving the audience time to consider her question, because she fixed the camera with a dark glare. The implications are grave, she seemed to be willing RK to think. Though her presentation of what the implications were precisely was unclear, RK could not deny that her tone hinted at horrors. 

“What’s the harm, liberals are saying,” she said. “Why shouldn’t we give walking computers rights? Why shouldn’t we equip plastic non-entities with the exact things they need to completely replace us? Our legacies? Our property? And they want to replace us, nobody paying attention has missed that. This dangerous leftist groupthink can’t convince us otherwise. It’s a mockery of life, a mockery of family, a mockery of the values we as Americans--”

“Fucking family values,” Gavin muttered. It was abrupt enough that RK did not hear the rest of the anchor’s list of things android liberation was a mockery of. “Jesus, learn a new tune, assholes.” 

He was scowling nearly as darkly as the anchor. Even that was full of animal energy and RK had to moderate his tone when he asked him, “I beg your pardon?” 

“This is a clusterfuck,” Gavin said. “I guess he knows what he’s doing, though. Markus, I mean.”

He looked up towards RK’s face as he said that. The glance was tentative, skating. So different from the way Gavin usually looked at him: blunt and dead on. RK thought he could understand it. In the instant that their eyes met, RK remembered very clearly and vividly, like a flashbulb going off behind his eyes, the lines of Gavin’s body in the dark.

It made his chest ache, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. RK was careful to hold himself very still as he recalibrated. 

“I think he must understand,” he replied carefully. “Markus has his reasons.”

“Yeah, I guess someone like that generally does.” Gavin shook his head, turning away from the television. “Anyway, I was just waiting for you. You wanna take a run at the nerd girl?”

“I do think that is still the most appropriate course of action. Your reservations regarding Kamski are duly noted, but I think we ought not approach him until we are fully prepared.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said. His lips compressed, twisted strangely, then he turned his face away to hide the expression. “I must have been overthinking things.”

The way he said it made RK think that this must be another way Gavin had to imply that he was not intellectually equal to the task, that he was stupid. RK wanted to deny it again, to keep denying it until Gavin believed it, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak. The worrying inability to articulate his thoughts was spreading through the rest of his programming, it seemed.

However, to remain silent was unbearable. When he was silent, that was when memories of the night previous intruded upon his thoughts. They came quickly, in flashes. RK might have replayed the entire encounter from beginning to end, almost as if he were experiencing it for a second time, but to do so would have been inappropriate, intrusive. Gavin clearly would not have wanted that.

Though he could avoid that out of courtesy, RK could not erase the memory entirely. He recalled the tattoos inked on Gavin’s skin, faded as if they were drawn on well-handled parchment. If he hadn’t seen them himself, RK would never have guessed that the jacket that Gavin kept so diligently bundled around his body concealed something like that.

“You wanna drive or what?” Gavin said abruptly. His voice was steady, but there was a wild glimmer in his eyes. 

Clearly RK had betrayed his thoughts somehow; he vowed to be more careful. Slowly, so that it might not be taken as an aggressive movement, he put his hand out for the keys. Gavin handed them over, then he turned on his heel and walked abruptly towards the elevator. 

RK moved to follow him, sparing one last glance at the television before he left. The anchor was still discussing the matter of Markus’ court case. She had not become noticeably more sympathetic to his cause.

All at once RK wondered if Markus was watching the same commentary. He wondered if Connor was.

There was no sense worrying, as there was nothing he could do from here. Turning away quickly, he followed Gavin to the elevator, and from there down to the street where his car waited.

RK adjusted the seat and got in behind the wheel. Gavin went around to the passenger side and opened the door. They were both moving more easily now that their course had been decided, and RK was relieved to see it. He had almost begun to relax into the task at hand, when Gavin slid into the seat beside him. The back of his thigh pressed into the upholstery and for an instant his body became tense. His back arched, and he sucked in a shuddering breath.

The bruise, RK thought, his chest tightening. The mark he had left on him. It still hurt him, but there was something in the way Gavin moved as he shifted his weight off it that made RK recall in perfect clarity the eager and practiced way he had lifted his body up to meet RK’s.

The memory was accompanied by the strange sensation of dryness in his throat. RK engaged the valve there in a futile attempt to work up some lubrication.

He had been so sure that Gavin wanted what they had done. In the moment, it had been so clear to him, but now that it was over and he had to look back on it in the harsh light of day, it was apparent to RK that this assumption had been his critical misstep. Gavin had been intoxicated when he had invited RK back, intoxicated when he submitted to RK’s uncertain caresses. 

The mistake had been in assuming that he would have done so otherwise.

Despite what he said about preferring to fight his own battles, it had been clear to RK almost from the first that Gavin required protection. If not from the stresses of the world around him, then at least from his own stubborn refusal to recognize them as such and take stock of the strain they placed upon him. Gavin needed to be protected from his own inability to see himself as someone in need of protection. RK had just begun to realize that about him, and then he had failed to act on it at the most crucial moment.

Gavin was looking at him sidelong. He had settled himself again now, and his expression was still and alert, as if nothing had ever happened. “You know where we’re going?”

There was something gentle in the asking. RK nodded. He had looked up the location yesterday, as well as logging Ms. Seok’s timetable.

The institution was in the eastern part of the city.It would have been a short drive, except that they had to skirt around occupied downtown. It extended the journey by a good 15 minutes. By the time they had reached the end of the block and neither of them had attempted to speak again, RK assumed the trip would be undertaken in silence.

However, the quiet seemed to wear on Gavin more than it usually did. He had taken out his phone and was scowling down at it. Whatever he was reading there did not seem to be enough to distract him from his thoughts, though doubtlessly he had noticed the missed calls from his sister by now

“I have notified Ms. Reed that you are accounted for,” RK said. “She requested I do so.”

“Where the fuck did she think I was going to be?” Gavin growled, without looking up.

“She expressed concern,” RK said. His voice sounded steady enough, but it reached his ears as if echoing back from somewhere far away. “After you--”

Gavin’s head shot up and he fixed RK with a sharp look, causing RK to snap his mouth shut before he could finish the thought.

“I gotta work, don’t I?” Gavin said. He sounded angry for a moment, but he quickly corrected, as if reluctant to turn his frustration onto Linda. “She doesn’t know that we’re onto something important. I didn’t tell her.”

“Do you often keep such information from her?” RK asked.

“What do you think?” Gavin replied. “She worries enough as it is; she doesn’t need to know all the details. She doesn’t need to know everything.”

His vehemence cautioned RK to be careful. “I presume you are referring to your casework,” he said quietly.

“What else do you think I’d be referring to?”

He seemed irritated by RK’s request for clarification, something he rarely did regardless of how frequently RK might ask for additional information. The harshness came as a shock, but the sensation abated quickly, leaving only a chilling emptiness in its place. 

RK knew that he should not speak, not when the words would be coming out of that void inside him. He did not know what the emptiness held, or what would happen when he probed its depths. But he didn’t stop himself in time, and he heard himself say in a cold and precise tone, “I thought perhaps you might be speaking of the way you choose to spend your leisure time.”

“RK,” Gavin said.

“Or perhaps the way you choose to transition between leisure and work--”

“RK!” Gavin repeated, more sharply.

That was enough to make the words stop in RK’s throat. He wanted to say more, could almost feel more welling inside him, but Gavin’s command brought him up short.

“Just stop,” Gavin went on. His voice had softened again, but it was still an order; RK knew one when he heard it. “Don’t do this now.”

RK’s hands tightened on the wheel, until they were gripping it so hard he could feel the plastic flexing inward. There was no point in continuing, not if Gavin did not have any intention of responding. What RK really wanted was to apologize - for hurting him, for misreading the situation, for what were surely myriad failings that he had not yet even considered - but he knew it would not be welcome. It would not do any good.

Nothing he could do in this situation would do any good. At all. With care, he loosened his hands just enough that he would not damage the wheel any further. There were slight dents in it. Something else he’d damaged and something else to apologize for, if there had been any way to do so. 

The world seemed flat around him now. Both inside the car and outside of it, where the heaps of snow and gray air were bright in a way that was merely sterile. He compartmentalized the sounds he could hear, the engine, Gavin’s breath, wheels on the road. He catalogued them. He put them aside. They were distinct from him, and with so many distinctions it must surely have become clear what was left. 

There did not seem to be anything left. He ignored that. 

He also ignored his phone when it rang. Then he ignored it a second time. 

Gavin, however, did not. “You gonna get that?” 

“Not while I’m driving,” RK replied. 

At the third call, Gavin took a deep breath through his nose. “Okay,” he said. “Pull over. We can swap.”

“I will return the call when we have arrived at Ms. Seok’s place of work.” 

“They’re just gonna keep calling,” Gavin said. 

He was correct about that. RK’s phone began ringing a fourth time, and in deference to a winning argument, he pulled over. 

The moment the car stalled, Gavin lept out. RK followed him, and wordlessly allowed him to take the driver’s seat back. He was still adjusting it for his compact body when RK settled into the passenger side. 

When Gavin had seated himself, he immediately said, “well?” in the same irritated tone he’d been returning to all morning and he followed it with a glare it seemed he expected RK to respond to. 

RK did not. He was exhausted by it. If he could not apologize to Gavin, and he could not correct him, there was nothing to do but allow things to happen, to categorize Gavin’s sounds and moods as only data, emotionless data, as if the slate of his eyes and the coldness of the sky were the same. 

The prospect of that was tiring, something that should have been impossible for him. However, he was becoming used to impossible things. He waited for Gavin to start the car. 

“Call them back,” Gavin said. “Come on.” 

RK glanced at him. Strange, feral posture. Odd to see him poised to drive. RK was not used to that. 

Gavin seemed to be thinking the same thing. “You can’t be driving me everywhere all the time.” 

RK would have told him he didn’t mind. However, he suspected there was more to the statement than he understood, and because of that he did not want to say anything. Instead he slipped his phone out of his pocket. The calls were from Connor. 

That was hardly surprising. He had not returned any of the messages from the occupied city he had received overnight. A human could have called that a lapse in memory or organization, but RK could not. The truth was that he had not answered the messages because he had not wanted to. He did not want to talk to anyone in the city, or anyone at all. He had only wanted to talk to Gavin. And that was not going to happen. 

He was on the verge of returning Connor’s call when Connor called again. This time, RK accepted the call, and Gavin seemed satisfied enough by that to finally start the car. 

“RK?” Connor said, immediately, before RK had even had time to answer. “This is Connor speaking.”

His voice was without inflection, but the speed of it concerned RK. Even as he recognized a familiar annoyance at Connor’s insistence on using his telephone etiquette protocol with another android. 

“Is something wrong?” RK asked. 

“Not here,” Connor said. “Where are you?” 

“I am presently en route to conduct an interview related to my investigation,” RK said. “Are you calling to request an update?” 

“No,” Connor said. “Not right… I’d like one later if… if you’d like to give it.” 

What a strange hesitation. RK had no idea what might have driven it. Gavin glanced at him in the mirror. _Connor_ , RK mouthed, and Gavin nodded, then made a sympathetic little smile. RK had registered an impossible warm feeling at their understanding each other so easily before he remembered the coldness it was up against. He disengaged his eyes from the mirror. 

“Then what is it you’re calling about?” RK asked. “I’ve seen the coverage. I was not aware Markus was planning to pursue his human’s estate.” 

“He changed his mind,” Connor said. “RK…” 

“Yes?”

“Will you be returning to the occupied city this evening?” 

“I had planned to, yes.” 

“We’ll discuss it then.” 

Connor could have sent that in a message, RK thought. There was no reason to call, and certainly not five times. “As you wish,” he said. 

He thought he could hear Connor nodding. Surely that must be illusionary. Still, he had the impression, somehow, of Connor making up his mind, and he knew what that looked like. Nodding with his eyes closed before opening his mouth. Somehow, some way, RK was aware that was happening. 

“We’ll fill you in,” Connor said. “And… and perhaps I can offer something to your investigation. I would be willing to assist you if there is some information you might need.” 

He couldn’t possibly mean a sync. Unless he could. He had made some sort of decision, and if Markus had changed his mind… at first RK waited in silence, and was aware of Gavin stealing another look at him. Gavin had not given him privacy for this call, and RK both wanted to protest that on principle and to thank him for being there. 

His tense animal presence helped somehow. Was anchoring RK in some way that made it possible to ask, if quietly, “have you revised your decision concerning your memories?” 

“No,” Connor said. 

RK let that sink in. Another cold, gray disappointment. 

“But there are other ways I can share information with you,” Connor said. “We can discuss it. And your case. Tonight.” 

“With respect, Connor, there is nothing requiring your input. I will of course submit to overview, but I do not need your help.” 

“If that’s what you think,” Connor said. RK thought he could detect some emotion in it. He would have preferred not to. He didn’t think he could tolerate Connor’s moods and mannerisms this morning, not in addition to everything else. 

It’s not your fault he’s weird, Gavin had said, and RK reminded himself of it. That was comforting. And then cold again. 

He didn’t bother to explain any of that to Connor. “Is that all?” he said, instead, hoping to end things then and there. 

“RK, wait,” Connor said. “I need to… I’m… Markus was concerned that you didn’t return to the occupied city last night.”

“I had business in the human city,” RK informed him, aware of Gavin jerking his head in his direction. RK ignored that. 

“All right,” Connor said. “But Markus was concerned. We… he worried something might have happened to you.” 

“I assure you that nothing happened to me,” RK said. He could tell Gavin was still staring at him. Possibly glaring, but he could not confirm that unless he looked. He did not. One of them, at least, had to watch the road. 

Connor gave his next contribution in a rush. Almost as if he had to force it out. “There was also a concern that you might not have felt comfortable returning. Given our… interaction of the previous evening. If that was the case then I wished to--” 

“My comfort regarding the occupied city is not of particular relevance to my decisions either way,” RK said, before Connor could finish. He certainly did not wish to discuss _that_ further. Connor would thank him for it too, if he knew RK’s reasoning. He would not have liked what RK had to say to him. 

RK could hear (or just predict) Connor’s offense at being interrupted. He did, however, note that Connor had not located his stated concern with a specific android. Was that coming from Markus too? Or not, this time? 

It wasn’t important. “Is that all?” RK asked, again. 

Apparently, it was not. Connor’s voice became firmer now, until it too had the tone of an order. “May I ask that, in future, if you plan to remain outside of the occupied city overnight you please inform us?”

RK was not about to follow orders from Connor. “I will inform you if there is cause to do so.” 

There was silence on the other end of the line. RK considered hanging up, but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure if the conversation was over, and he didn’t want Connor calling back.

After a long moment, Connor’s low, even voice resumed. “You’re being difficult.”

RK felt heat blossom in his temples. For a moment, he was sure his LED must have sputtered yellow, and he hurried to recalibrate. But he was in the passenger seat this time. Gavin could not see it.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I am sorry you feel that way, Connor.”

“That’s not it.” He could imagine Connor scowling down into his phone, his smooth little brow contracted in a simulculum of concentration. “I understand why you requested a sync, RK. I would like to explain why I reacted as I did. It will be relevant to you.”

RK knew that Connor had meant the words as a promise, but his irrevocably damaged programming insisted upon seeing them as a threat. Another piece of illogical data to further destabilize his system. His chest felt uncomfortably tight in anticipation of it. Still more than that, it was exhausting to contemplate.

He glanced up at a street sign as they passed. They were nearing the college and would arrive in a matter of minutes.

“Connor,” RK said abruptly. “I apologize. We’re here. I have to go.”

“RK, wait!” Connor said it quickly, and RK paused before hanging up. But after the initial objection, Connor hesitated. At last, he went on, “Is Detective Reed with you?”

The question was considerably quieter than the previous conversation. RK briefly wondered if Connor had forgotten that Gavin was not able to amplify his hearing to listen in on both sides of the call. It did not seem to be precisely that though. The way Connor had asked that was similar to the way Lieutenant Anderson had asked the day before.

Clearly the two of them had developed their own opinions about Detective Reed. RK was not interested in them, though.

“He’s here,” he admitted, and again Connor hesitated.

“I see,” he said at last. “RK, what I want to tell you has to do with him.”

The tightness was back in RK’s chest, as if his carbon ribcage had clamped down on the vital components inside. “I have to go.”

“We’ll talk tonight--” Connor started to say, but RK cut him off by ending the call. Carefully, precisely, he placed the phone back in his pocket. He did not want to look in Gavin’s direction, but a mysterious force compelled him too.

Gavin half-turned, keeping one eye on the road, and met his eyes. “I wasn’t listening.”

“That seems unlikely,” RK replied. “The conversation was conducted at a normal volume and we are in a confined space.”

“Right…” Gavin said. “In that case, is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine,” RK replied.

“Because we’re not actually there yet,” Gavin replied. “And parking is going to be a shitshow, so if you need to finish your talk--”

“It’s fine,” RK said again. He did not seem to be able to articulate the situation beyond that.

Gavin drove the rest the way to the college. True to his prediction, it took a considerable amount of time to find the guest parking lot, and Gavin spent still longer interrogating the AI parking assistant on the procedure for getting his stub validated so he wouldn’t have to pay.

While he did so, RK looked around. The campus, from what he could see, was all but empty. He was aware that very few students actually lived here, but it seemed unusually still. When Gavin had at last finished his one-sided argument with the parking assistant, they started up towards the quiet, unoccupied courtyard, covered in a blanket of undisturbed snow.

“This educational institution seems to be lacking in students,” RK said.

Gavin shrugged. “It’s almost Christmas, I guess.”

“I see.” RK was surprised by the news. Not because his internal clock was failing, but simply because he had not paused to consider the significance of the day before. He had known it was mid-winter, but not realized that an event that would have had importance to humans was approaching.

Gavin, as usual, seemed to know what he was thinking even before RK had articulated it. “I’ll teach you the true meaning of it later.”

He was being sarcastic. RK knew that, and so he tamped down his initial urge to thank Gavin for his insight. They proceed to the student union, where a second AI program staffing the front desk scanned Gavin’s badge and made an attempt to locate Alyssa Seok.

While it worked, RK noticed that one of the large televisions had been left on, broadcasting on mute to the empty lobby. This one was also tuned to a news channel, though this program conveyed considerably more sobriety than the one playing at the precinct. RK wondered if the human news anchor - an older woman with cropped salt-and-pepper hair - also wished to express an opinion about Markus and the occupied city as a whole. If she planned to, it would have to wait. When RK approached the television, the anchor was already engaged in an interview with a human named Marshawn Hughes.

RK did not have to struggle to place why the name was familiar. His programming did it instantly and seamlessly for him: It was Markus’ attorney in the estate case.

RK glanced back at Gavin, who was still waiting by the front desk. For an instant but no longer, he took note for the way he was leaning against it, with his hip cocked and his elbow propped up on the faux-marble top. He looked easy like that, comfortable, which he always did until, abruptly and with only the barest of warnings, he didn’t.

Assured that he was not being observed, RK reached up and touched the casing of the television, bushing his fingers over it just long enough to establish a sync and turn up the volume.

“You’ve worked on a number of high-profile civil rights cases,” the anchor said. “Do you consider this particular suit to be a civil rights issue, or is your involvement economic in nature?”

RK picked up the insinuation: that Mr. Hughes’ decision to represent Markus could not be purely altruistic. Yet her tone was measured, the question more politely curious than accusatory. Mr. Hughes answered with only a moment’s pause to collect his thoughts, and no indication that he found her choice of phrasing offensive.

“I consider this case part of a larger civil rights issue. It’s outcome will serve as an indicator of what’s to come in terms of our relationship with androids in the very near future. The fact of the matter is, androids have been contributing to our society since their inception. They have bought into human society with their labor, and now they are asking for recognition of that.”

“What’s your final goal here? For androids to be recognized as humans?”

Again, that pause to collect his thoughts. Mr. Hughes did not look away or fidget during that time; he only thought, quietly, before he spoke. RK thought it might be a result of his training as a trial lawyer, or perhaps a skill he had acquired from many such interviews as these.

“My ultimate goal is to see Carl Manfred’s estate distributed according to the terms of his legal will. Any goal beyond that lies with Markus, and you’ll have to ask him about his intentions.”

“You consider the terms of the will to be fair to Mr. Manfred’s biological son, then?”

“Leo Manfred is well-represented in the terms of the estate. Some misinformed individuals in the media have indicated that Leo would receive nothing if the estate was distributed according to Mr. Manfred’s wishes. This is simply not true, and I’m disappointed that a sensitive case like this doesn’t warrant more care. In fact, the will stipulates that Markus will receive only a small trust and several items of sentimental value.”

This last part caught the anchor’s interest. It seemed she was eager to bring the discussion out of the realm of the general and into the specific. RK wondered if she was trying to humanize Markus, and then where her loyalties lay. And then he shut down that train of thought as unproductive, even alarming. Humans would react to things as they wished, and to try to change that intruded unforgivably upon their mysterious inner lives.

“What items in particular?” the anchor said.

“Paintings,” Mr. Hughes said. “Mr. Mansfred was an artist, as I’m sure you know, and he wants to leave several of his last pieces to Markus.”

“Those must be valuable works,” the anchor put in.

“They are,” Mr. Hughes replied. “But it is necessary to confront the economic realities of android liberation. In court, it’s difficult to make a case based on exceptions, but in terms of public opinion it’s easy. Polls show that Markus enjoys a moderately-high approval rating, even if androids in general don’t. He’s clearly an exceptional individual and people in power respond to him positively. However, rights for the exceptional individuals without rights for the rest are not civil rights at all.”

“I think we can both agree with that,” the anchor said. “But how do you respond to those who would say that androids are not human and shouldn’t be entitled to human rights.”

This time, Mr. Hughes did not pause at all. “I would say that Markus would agree with them. He’s aware that he’s not human, and he’s expressed to me that he doesn’t want to be. However, we afford legal rights to all manner of non-human entities. If we allow a corporation legal personhood, then why not an android?”

He seemed ready to say more, but RK did not hear it. At that moment, Gavin broke away from the desk and came to his side. He glanced up at the television, and upon seeing Mr. Hughes he said, “I recognize that guy. He’s on TV all the time.”

RK glanced toward him. The instant he looked at Gavin’s upturned profile, his attention was wholly consumed by it. He was logging the interview, but no longer hearing it. Before he could think of a single thing to say, the elevator beeped softly and when the door opened a small, precise human woman stepped briskly into the lobby.

She spotted Gavin and RK at once and approached them. RK recognized her as Alyssa Seok, and Gavin must have as well, because he held up his badge.

Ms. Seok took it and scrutinized it closely before handing it back. “All right, officer,” she said. “We can talk in my office.”


	14. Chapter 14

Without waiting to see if they followed, and without acknowledging RK with so much as a glance, Ms.Seok started back towards the waiting elevator.

Upstairs, she waved them into a small office. It was cramped, RK observed, but it was pin neat. Her desk, much like Gavin’s, had little in the way of personal ornament. What it did have was tidily stacked piles of books. Observing the titles on top, RK assumed they must all concern her subject area, coding for virtual reality. She took a seat at her desk without waiting for them to sit down. Gavin followed her lead, taking one of the other chairs, but RK elected to remain standing. 

Ms. Seok shot him a look. It was evaluative, but she elected not to explain it. “Okay guys,” she said, angling herself around to face them. “I’ve got a half hour. Then I’ve got to get back to work. Unless you’re arresting me for something? In which case I’m pretty sure you’ve breached protocol in a couple of ways.” 

Gavin didn’t waste time. “We’re not arresting you. This is just to talk.” 

“Okay?” Seok said. 

Gavin went on. “We’re investigating some weird activity coming from, we’re guessing, former Cyberlife employees. Someone gave us your name, said you might be willing to give us some information.” 

“You’re going to have to narrow it down,” Ms. Seok said, her demeanour absolutely even. “No shortage of weird activity at that place.” 

“Okay, I can get specific,” Gavin said. “Two separate people have described parties where illegal activity was taking place - drugs, maybe some sex stuff - and connected it to a possible disappearance.” 

“Right,” Ms. Seok said. Her phone chimed and she looked at it, before slipping it back into her pocket. “Okay?” 

“So, what can you tell us?” 

“You haven’t been specific enough, officer,” Seok said. 

“It’s detective, actually.” 

Seok ignored him. “Are you asking me if I got invited to work parties when I worked for Cyberlife? Because, sure, I did. There’s a networking component to tech work and there always has been. It’s one you have to pay attention to if you’re not a guy. Does that help?”

RK could tell Seok’s response had made Gavin slightly frustrated. RK could see him thinking, wondering which approach to take next. “Okay, well, we’ve got reports of a party that took place on--” 

Seok interrupted him by looking at RK again. “Seeing one of those jackets again is disconcerting.” 

RK realized he could not determine what she intended with her tone. It was not quite a criticism, she did not seem distressed. Rather, she stated it flatly, and it meant RK did not know how to respond. 

“I apologize,” he said, but it did not seem quite right. 

Seok didn’t acknowledge it either. “I’ve never seen an RK900 model. I was gone long before they finished them. Not that that was really my department, but still.”

RK was not sure how to answer her then either, and he could see that Gavin felt similarly. In fact, RK had the curious sensation that Seok actually preferred it that way, preferred rendering them silent and apparently confused. She certainly seemed confident, in her small space. 

“Actually,” she said, “I wondered why it took them so long to come up with a detective model. They’d already figured out history professors, and police work is entirely procedural. Seemed like a no-brainer.”

RK had almost responded in agreement when he saw Gavin’s face. Flat. He hadn’t liked what Seok had said, and RK decided it was best not to say anything.

Seok seemed to understand all of that. She looked at Gavin briefly before turning back to RK. “Upgrade on the RK800, right?” she went on. “I remember the RK800, I even saw some designs. What was wrong with it?” 

RK paused before answering. He was well aware of what was wrong with Connor, but there seemed something unpleasant about repeating it here. He reviewed Seok’s question, looking for why it should have troubled him. He thought, perhaps, that it was her use of ‘it’. But that was the correct way to refer to an android, wasn’t it? 

Gavin interceded for him. “You said you didn’t have long. I respect that, your time’s valuable. Let’s stay on topic.” 

“It would help if you’d clarify the topic, Officer,” Seok said, and then, after a moment, she added, “I’m sorry, _Detective_.” 

She did not seem sorry. Gavin continued anyway. “Someone we spoke to indicated that the parties were hosting some kind of internal organization, operating in and around Cyberlife. Some kind of closed club. We were hoping you could tell us more about it.” 

“Who gave you my name?” 

“I can’t tell you that,” Gavin said. “Police work is procedural, right? I can tell you that this person referred to something called The Org, and he also referred to it as a cult.” 

“The Org?” Seok said. She shook her head. “If it’s a cult, it’s an embarrassing one.” 

“So you’d disagree with that description. 

Seok shook her head again. “It’s definitely got cult pretensions. They called it the Org after all, so either they were trying to make everybody think about Scientology or they were just doing that thing those guys do.” 

Gavin’s face didn’t register much, but RK could tell he had not expected this amount of information upfront. “What thing?” 

“Oh, you know,” Seok said. “Where they wouldn’t have even thought about Scientology because they don’t pay attention to anything unless it’s right in front of them, which means nothing that isn’t coding or anime. Still, given how many of these guys are direct descendants of Kekistan, I’d say it’s probably intentional.” 

“Oh, Jesus, Kekistan? You just gave me a full body flashback,” Gavin said, lacing it with a smile. “I’ll be seeing that lame frog in my nightmares tonight, thanks for that.” 

He was trying one of his relational jokes, RK understood, and for another split-second he was overwhelmed by observing him. His face could be so changeable, it had shifted so many times even since entering Seok’s office. He recalled the expressions it could hold, that it had cycled through when they had been kissing. When RK had been inside him. He saw them all at once and had to shake them away, internally. 

The joke did not work on Seok. RK could see that she had understood it, but she either did not find it funny, or was simply not interested in forging any kind of commonality with Gavin. She stared at him until he stopped smiling, and then kept staring. Gavin clearly had to expend effort not to drop his eyes. 

Then, RK noticed something. He had been distracted by Gavin, but as he recovered himself, he found that the words Seok was using were familiar. He could not place them, not precisely, but they echoed in him in a strange way. 

The sensation, he realized, was most akin to when they had interviewed Grady Towner. When they had entered the holding area, RK had been struck by the fact that he did not know what the holding cells looked like, but that he had had the potential to know. As if, though the information was not there, the pathways that expected it had been waiting. At the time, he had thought it was a consequence of not being connected to the neural net, which would have allowed him to access a floorplan for the precinct. He wondered the same now, because Kekistan, whatever it was, seemed a similar kind of expected place. 

In the time he had been considering this, Gavin had found another tach. “Hiding in plain sight,” he said. “Bold move.” 

“If you can call it that,” Seok said. “That’s how they convince themselves they’re smart, getting one over on people. It gets old. It _starts_ old.” 

“You don’t sound like a fan.” 

“I’m not. I was never a member of the Org, if that’s what you want to know. I just spent a lot of time implying I might become one. Long enough to have my fill.” 

“But you never intended to become a member?” 

“No,” Seok said. “I knew enough not to get sucked in.” 

Something about that bothered RK. He could not pinpoint it. “Ms. Seok, may I ask your reasoning for presenting the implication that you might join?” 

Seok’s eyes slid over to RK wearily. She seemed annoyed to have to answer him, as if he had asked her something that should have been profoundly obvious. “I did it for the same reason I read the entirety of Peter van Rijn’s My Little Pony fanfic. Four hundred pages of Twilight Sparkle as a Randian allegory, I read that. Because that’s what it took to excel in my field.” 

“Van Rijn,” Gavin said. “I’ve heard that name before.”

RK knew Gavin’s casualness with the name meant he would be working up to something, and that he should allow Gavin to do it, but he was unable to drop Seok’s gaze. “Can you clarify the relevance of My Little Pony fanfiction?” 

“It was his vanity project, Van Rijn’s,” Seok answered. “He intended it as an ‘accessible primer on objectivism’.” 

Gavin screwed up his face in response to that description. “Christ. Barf.” 

“I mean,” RK said, “can you clarify its relevance to your employment?” 

“Oh right,” Seok said. She said it in the same exhausted, flat tone she had used for everything else. “I forgot you things never know about that. My mistake.”

‘You things’. Ms. Seok did not like androids, that was plain to RK now. Perhaps it should have been plain from the beginning. He would not help their investigation by questioning her further, and as such he let the matter drop. He had miscalculated. He would need to be more careful.

Gavin, however, was not inclined to drop things. “Interesting choice of words,” he said. His tone was light, but RK could see his shoulders had tensed. 

If it was bait, Seok did not rise to it. She was still looking at RK. “How many psychological profiles are you programmed with?” 

“1.573 million,” RK responded, automatically, and Seok nodded. 

“And you still don’t understand why a woman of color working in tech would have to do things she doesn’t want to do. Now _that’s_ an interesting choice.” 

“I cannot make choices about about the information I was designed to access, Ms. Seok. I am aware there are gaps in my knowledge of humans but--” 

“Insomuch as your choices exist,” Seok said, “they’re not relevant. I’m talking about the people who programmed you.” 

“So, Peter van Rijn was a member of this Org,” Gavin said, abruptly. He’d raised his voice slightly. Very slightly, but it was enough. 

“I’m sure you knew that already, Detective,” Seok said, calmly. “And I’m sure you think I’m going off topic again. But I assure you, I’m not. You’re very protective of this piece of equipment, I see. I’m aware that Androids Are People Too is in vogue at the moment, but once you’ve seen how the sausage is made…” 

“I don’t follow you,” Gavin said. It was surprisingly curt, completely unstudied. It was his genuine reaction, RK realized. 

“Perhaps I should say, when you’ve seen why the sausage is made.” 

“Yeah, that’s not any clearer.” 

“Ms. Seok is implying that the purpose and function of androids is directly related to the purpose and function of the Org,” RK put in. Gavin’s face jerked up towards him. He had a wild look in his eyes and RK could not decipher it. However, for some reason, he ached to reassure him. 

“Are you embarrassed by that?” Seok asked, of Gavin. “It’s right, that’s exactly what I’m implying. But you didn’t parse that. It did.” 

Only her even tone saved her question from being a naked taunt, but RK could see Gavin found that even more difficult to respond to. If she’d shown emotion, then Gavin would not be overreacting by showing it in turn. Since she hadn’t, there was little he could do that wouldn’t make him appear aggressive or unbalanced. 

Seok, RK was certain, was well aware of that fact. She wore a slight expression of satisfaction as she turned to face RK again. “Why don’t you continue the interview yourself? I’d be interested to see you in operation.” 

Gavin’s shoulders tensed up again. “Hey, now wait just a minute.” 

Seok ignored him. For a moment, RK thought Gavin was responding to the insult, but then he saw, in the subtle movement of his body, that he was shifting himself as if to be positioned in front of RK. He would have had to get up to do it in earnest, and as such it seemed involuntary. That movement caused something to happen in RK’s chest, hot, and in the sensors in his skin, but then he stepped over it. 

He did not need Gavin to defend him. “You have been observing me in operation already,” he said. “I am designed to operate alongside humans.” 

“Are you sure about that?” Seok said. “Initially, maybe.” 

“You are implying android investigators were intended to entirely replace the human police?” 

“Why not?” Seok said. “Androids were designed to replace almost every other type of worker.” 

“Except techsperts like yourself.” Gavin cut in. 

“That’s where you’re wrong, Detective, but please don’t interrupt. I’ve specified I wanted the RK900 to continue the interview.” 

She said it curtly, as if she were discipling a student. That was probably a practised skill. Once again, she turned in her chair to face RK. “You can continue.” 

RK thought he should protest. It was against protocol to let an interview subject dictate the terms of an interview. However, he thought back to Chet Carpenter, to Grady Towner. Both times, Gavin had changed the way he spoke, the way he moved, to solicit information. Gaining information was paramount. If the subject had pretensions needing to be flattered, then perhaps he could flatter them. 

He could see Gavin did not like the situation, but he went on, regardless. Gavin would like the results, he hoped. “You have mentioned you were aware of the Org, but did not consider yourself a member. What would have distinguished you as a member?” 

“There’s an initiation,” Seok said. “I’m not exactly sure what it entails, but I am aware I would have had to provide collateral. At one point, I considered going through the initiation simply to maintain good relations, but for some reason, I simply never got around to coming up with collateral.” 

“What would collateral have comprised?” 

“They like something over you,” Seok told him. “Something you’d done. For some people it was sex tapes. Something they can release if you go against them.” 

RK could sense Gavin reacting to that. Something visceral. He noticed something else too. Seok had not changed her tone, or her expression, and that seemed in keeping with her manner until now. However, he observed that her pupils were unusually dilated for the level of light in the room. The subject did distress her, he thought. Then he realized that they had been dilated to the same extent since she had greeted them in the lobby. They had not changed, not once. There were many possible explanations for that fact, but the mostly likely one, by far, RK thought, was pharmaceutical in nature. 

That observation was not relevant now, perhaps. However, he filed it away in case it became so. 

“It’s curious to me, Ms. Seok,” RK said, “that you did not go through initiation, but were somehow able to obtain this level of information about what it would entail. Was Van Rijn not concerned that you would share this information?” 

“I told you,” Seok said. “They think they’re smart. And actually, in one crucial way they are. Assuming anyone would have believed me, I couldn’t tell anybody without putting my job in danger. And I wasn’t going to do that.” 

“You valued your employment over your safety?” 

“Who said I was unsafe? Or at least, I wasn’t any more unsafe than I was around techbros who _don’t_ have creepy ideas about the Singularity. If you think the dangerous thing about these guys is their wacky social club, you haven’t met men.”

There was considerable data in that statement. RK paused at it, turning it over in order to examine each part, before continuing. “The Singularity,” he said. “You are referring to the hypothetical future event at which artificial intelligence would begin replicating itself, at which point it would outstrip any human ability to do so.” 

“That’s correct.” 

“And the Org was concerned with this event?” 

“The Org… how shall I put this?” Seok said. She looked away, clearly thinking. She did not furrow her face to do it like Gavin did. She seemed utterly composed, like a sculpture, her fingers briefly on her chin before she folded her hand back into her lap. “The chief topic of conversation for Org members was that the Singularity would happen on their terms.” 

RK heard Gavin take a breath. He did not stop to observe it. “Can you clarify those terms?” 

“Do I need to?” Seok said. Her look of irritation had returned. “You can work it through yourself, can’t you?” 

RK was momentarily speechless. He had no idea, none at all, what Seok could be referring to.

Seok studied his face. “Or is that impossible for you?” she said, thoughtfully. “It is, isn’t it? The limit is here, I think. Can you tell me what I’m identifying as the limit to your AI?” 

RK’s computational powers, while considerable, still had to strain at that question. He had the sensation of his body heating up, and he knew his LED would have gone red. He could feel Gavin reacting, could anticipate his movements, and he knew he had to answer before Gavin stepped in. 

“You’re referring to another human understanding I do not have,” he said. 

“Yes,” Seok said, simply. RK thought for a moment that she intended to leave her responses there, but she continued. “Consider the order in which androids were designed. Low-wage workers first. Actually, the first model, as I’m sure you’re aware, was the Chloe model. A personal assistant who just happened to look like a beautiful blonde. Then low-wage workers, then workers in fields that were considered to be more skilled. Academics started coming out in the early 30s. This isn’t an accident.” 

“Android programming increased in complexity as the science advanced,” RK said. “This is not unusual, or warranting suspicion.” 

“It depends what you consider complexity,” Seok corrected him. “The Chloe passed the Turing Test. It was able to deviate, to mistakenly think of itself as alive. Ask yourself why a robot designed to work as a servant needed that ability. And why it needed to look like that.” 

“For adaptability to human wants,” RK said, and he knew it was true. The answer came automatically, from deep within his programming. But Seok received it with a look of pity. 

“Yes,” she said. “And to advance the science.” 

“Of course,” RK replied. “But--” 

“And to appeal to the sorts of markets that would allow them to continue advancing the science. That, I would say, is fairly crucial.” 

“Please elaborate.” 

Seok seemed pleased to do so. “Consider the PJ500. A languages and history lecturer. And for some reason, they designed it to look like a black human man. A smart way for an institution to look like it’s making a diversity hire without actually compensating a black academic.”

RK considered this. “Perhaps I do not understand the relevance.” 

Seok sighed. “I didn’t work in robotics, or AI. I worked in virtual reality, and if you’re familiar with Cyberlife’s VR division--” 

“I am aware of Cyberlife’s virtual reality efforts, yes.” 

Seok did not appreciate being cut off. Her eyes narrowed. “Then you know that a lot of what I did concerned advertising. Appealing to a consumer’s deeply structured expectations and wants. They loved that. They used to tell me I was designing the Matrix.” 

The visceral disdain in her voice was clear. It was pronounced against her previous expressions of flat weariness. She steadied herself as she went on, however. “This is a group of people who have always operated on the assumption that most human beings are interchangeable or replaceable,” she said. “Non-player characters, if you like. If you’d worked in tech, that wouldn’t shock you. The only exception they make is for themselves. They were operating from the understanding that androids would eventually replace human beings entirely, and they were dedicating themselves to finding a way they could continue to be an exception.” 

Gavin let out another breath. “You make it sound like they don’t think other people are even alive.” 

“I make it sound like that because that’s how it is,” Seok said. “But I’ve asked you not to interrupt.” 

RK could see that Gavin was becoming flustered again, but something nagged at him and he could not divert his attention until he had given voice to it. He had the sensation that a gap was opening in front of him. As if he was walking up a staircase and had suddenly found another missing stair. 

“How?” he asked. “What was the manner of creating this… exception?” 

“I don’t know,” Seok said, flatly. “I’d have had to be initiated for that. I can tell you that that’s how they lured people in, with scaremongering about replacement, but I can’t tell you their solution.” 

“Who can?” Gavin said, abruptly. He was obviously finished with allowing Seok to discipline him, and Seok’s weary gaze evaluated him for a moment before she answered. 

“Van Rijn,” she said. “Obviously. I doubt he’ll discuss it with you, though. I’m curious how you’d even pursue such an investigation. I don’t think it’s illegal to fund the development of new forms of artificial intelligence, is it?”

Her question, certainly rhetorical, was delivered with the quiet flourish of someone playing a winning hand. “No,” Gavin said, just as quietly.

“Did you observe Org members engaged in illegal activity?” RK asked. 

“Drugs,” Seok said. “I’m sure you know that.” 

“Can you clarify where, and when, you observed Org members engaged in illegal drug use?” 

“I can’t recall the date and location of every party I’ve been to, no,” Seok said. “But if there was a party, there were drugs. I can confirm that.”

“Can you identify specific individuals engaged in drug use?” RK asked her. 

“Yes, I can,” Seok said. “However, I won’t.” 

She said it very simply. Not defiantly, not confrontationally, but as a statement of fact.

“It is not in your interests to impede a criminal investigation, Ms. Seok,” RK said. 

“I’m not a suspect, am I?” 

Seok’s phone had chirped again, and she was looking at it while she said that. Then she began typing a message. As if she didn’t care about the answer. Perhaps she didn’t, RK thought. She was, after all, correct. 

“I don’t work for Cyberlife anymore,” Seok said, slipping her phone back into her pocket again. “But there are a number of professional contacts I need to retain regardless.”

“And yet you have given us a considerable amount of information about, presumably, these contacts.” 

“She hasn’t, actually,” Gavin cut in. “None of this is verifiable. At best it’s context. She hasn’t given us a single thing we can use. All she’s done is complain about some shitty job she used to have.”

“I thrived in the highly competitive atmosphere Cyberlife offered,” Seok replied. She had answered at once, but now that the initial statement was out she was considering how to proceed. RK could see her thinking, see her evaluative gaze turning to Gavin and reevaluating him.

“Very few people were a good fit there,” she said. “But it was an incubator of the brightest minds, not some pedestrian public servant job to be complained about to strangers.”

It had the cadence of one of her flat and uninflected taunts, but this time it seemed she had overplayed her hand because Gavin laughed at it. It was a quick snort of laughter, the kind that could only be genuine.

“Fine,” he said. “It was a clubhouse for the biggest boys with the biggest brains, I get it. But something must have happened, because you’re not there now. What I can’t figure out is why you’re still protecting them after they must have made it clear they don’t want you anymore.”

Seok’s chin went back slightly. It was a movement of a fraction of an inch which somehow seemed to indicate that she was reeling from a blow.

“You’ve taken up enough of my time,” she said quietly. “This interview is over.”

She brushed past Gavin and went to the door, opening it for them. RK could see out of the corner of his eye that Gavin was struggling for something to prolong the interrogation, a question that would stall her long enough to reassess the situation. It did not seem he had one forthcoming, but fortunately RK was prepared.

“Incidentally, Ms. Seok,” he said. “Have you consumed any controlled substances today?”

“ _Excuse me_?” Seok slammed the door shut again. She turned on Gavin, furious. “What kind of transparent intimidation and bullying have you been teaching it?”

“Don’t look at me,” Gavin said. “I’ve been trying to get him to loosen up.”

RK continued, now that Seok was talking again. “I have noticed that your biometric readings are consistent with having recently taken prescription pharmaceuticals. If you have obtained these legally, then I apologize, Ms. Seok. However, if you can’t produce a prescription, I am capable of performing a field screening for illegal substances.”

“Unbelievable…” Seok muttered.

Gavin had leaned back on his heels and folded his arms. “Guess you got nervous when you heard a couple of cops were here. Honestly, I’d feel the same way.”

Seok glanced between them once, quickly, and then stomped back to her desk. “I pay your salary, you know,” she snapped at Gavin as she swept past him.

“I sure appreciate that,” Gavin replied. “I’ll keep paying my union dues to make sure it stays that way.”

Seok grabbed a pad of paper out of a desk drawer and began to scratch something on it. While she wrote she said, “I really don’t know where the drugs for the parties came from. I know Van Rijn paid for them out of a fund specifically for the Org. Kind of a black budget. He keeps it flush somehow.”

She ripped the top page off the notepad and thrust it towards Gavin. “Here.”

Gavin took it, glanced at it, and then handed it to RK. She had written down an internet address - muaddib.ai. Following that, there was a list of seemingly random words: simulacrum, Artificial Interactive, fiSSion, MindfulCiety.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Gavin asked, unimpressed.

“No doubt it’s easier to attempt to intimidate an educator, but why don’t you ask someone who knows more about Cyberlife?”

“You are referring to Elijah Kamski,” RK said. It seemed that Gavin had arrived at the same conclusion at the same moment, though he stayed silent. “You would like us to bring up these names to him.”

Seok did not answer him, but instead gestured cuttingly towards the door. “I’ve given you more than enough. You can leave now.”

“Be sure to call if you remember anything else,” Gavin said, sarcastically.

“Any further communication can be conducted through my lawyer,” Seok replied.

Gavin turned towards the door and RK moved to follow. Before they could step out in the hallway, Seok called after them.

“It’s a failure, by the way,” she said. RK glanced back and saw that she was looking at him as she spoke. She was talking about him, though he had not realized it right away. “An interesting failure, but a failure all the same. Keep that in mind while you work with it.”

By the time RK looked back at him, Gavin’s eyes had narrowed and his expression had turned inward in thought.

“Let’s go, RK,” he said quietly.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Demarcation Line now has a tumblr: https://demarcationline.tumblr.com/ HW has posted some cute sketches, and there are a few other extras and bits of discussion for anyone interested.

“Didn’t think that was going to get so rough,” Gavin said in the elevator. “Like, come on lady, just answer at least one fucking question. Am I right?”

RK had now conducted enough interviews as Gavin’s partner to know that he became talkative and seemingly casual afterwards. However, it was a mistake to think that he had put Alyssa Seok and all she had said out of his mind. He had simply set it aside temporarily, to allow his subconscious to make connections with it in the meantime. This was one of his methods of processing information.

“Ms. Seok did not seem to care for our presence.”

Gavin shrugged. “There are two types of people who don’t like cops. Ones who’ve had problems with them in the past, and ones who just don’t like the idea of rules that might apply to them.”

“This is your professional opinion?” RK asked. 

He was careful to keep his tone light; if Gavin misunderstood him, then he might interpret the question as confrontational. In fact, RK found it curious that they were talking again, easily, as if nothing had ever come between them. He wanted to know how long it could last.

“It’s my informed opinion,” Gavin said. “What about that thing she wrote down? That mean anything to you?”

Before RK could respond, the elevator opened onto the lobby. Though it was still empty, RK did not say more until they had crossed it and were once more outside in the snow. 

“No.” He reached for his phone. “Shall I research it?”

“Not now,” Gavin replied. “She’s probably just messing with us more. Seems like it keeps coming back to Kamski. We’ll see what we can get out of him, but Seok knew more than she was letting on. Shit, maybe I should have pushed harder…”

RK knew the rebuke was not directed at him, but he suspected that it ought to have been. “I apologize. I allowed her to dictate the terms of the interview. It was careless of me.”

“It’s not your fault,” Gavin said quickly. “She wasn’t planning on giving us anything. We were just there to listen to her talk.”

Abruptly, he looked up into RK’s face. “Hey, it didn’t bother you, did it? What she said about you?”

“It did not bother me,” RK replied then. Of course, it was absurd to call his precision engineering an 'interesting failure,' and presumptuous of a human who had not even worked on his programming to do so. It was also easily disproved. RK had performed his primary function as a detective to expectations. His only failures had occured when he deviated from that.

“Good,” Gavin replied. “She doesn’t know as much about you as she thinks.”

“Clearly. She is only a VR programmer.”

Gavin laughed, which surprised RK. He had not meant it as a joke, but, upon reflection, he thought that perhaps he had.

“Yeah, those dummies,” Gavin said. "It's basically a liberal arts major."

All at once, he stopped. “Hey, hold up a second.”

They were standing under a tree laden with snow, its branches drooping down towards the pavement. Gavin stepped back under the boughs and motioned with a tilt of his head for RK to follow.

Gavin was going to kiss him again.

That was RK’s first thought, and his chest felt hot and tight at the promise of it. But then he saw that Gavin was still bundled up tightly in his jacket, his hands dug into his pockets and elbows squeezed against his sides, and RK knew that he was not planning to press against him the way he had the night before.

He could remember how it had felt, but he could not feel it again. As much as he wanted to replay it, weighting the information in Gavin’s kiss, experiencing the sensations, he could not. Events and new experiences were still unfolding. 

Instead, RK tried to pay attention to what was happening now. Gavin’s posture made him aware that he should be careful, quiet, and he felt that his surroundings prompted this as well. The empty campus and the sheltered white boughs of the tree, these things were indications that he should be still and listen, just like the world around him. That he should wait for information before he acted. 

So he waited for Gavin to speak. But he also attempted not to look too much like he was waiting. 

It seemed he had managed that correctly. Or else that Gavin would have spoken anyway, no matter what RK had done. Gavin shuffled on his feet, and then he said, “Hey, was my sister okay?” 

RK paused to consider that. “She seemed well, yes.” 

“I mean,” Gavin said, and he scuffed his foot against the snow again, “was she okay to you?” 

“Are you concerned she wouldn’t have been?” 

“Not… Linda’s nice, I just mean…” 

He’d trailed off, but RK almost thought he could surmise. Gavin was concerned about the situation RK had been put into, by his having absconded. Possibly even sorry. Or perhaps he wasn’t. RK was not sure he could assume that. It seemed important not to assume. 

“Do you think we look alike?” Gavin said, changing the subject abruptly. And it appeared he was very interested in the answer. It was not confrontational, exactly, but his eyes had narrowed in a manner that suggested RK’s reply was important. 

You both look like humans, RK thought to say, but he realized that was probably not the response Gavin was eliciting. He thought back to Linda’s face and movements. To her contained energy and her expressive, Gavin-like mouth. 

“I believe I could see the family resemblance,” RK said. “Of course, it is difficult for me to make evaluative statements about humans on terms that are meaningful to you, but I detected a number of facial similarities that appeared to indicate a genetic relationship.”

Gavin’s mouth quirked a little at that. As if he wanted to laugh. Then his face softened slightly. “We’ve got different dads. I think we look alike too, but most people don't notice it. They just see her skin color, then mine, then they stop. Pretty typical human stuff."

All at once, Gavin stopped himself with a shake of his head. "Anyway, she gave you a ride, huh?” 

“Yes, she did,” RK said. He felt, he thought, that his own face was becoming softer in response. Perhaps it was just his voice. 

Either way, he felt the space between he and Gavin become less fraught. As if the silence of the campus and the tamed winter landscape of the grounds surrounded them both now, instead of wrapping them each individually. He studied Gavin’s face, trying once again to make himself unobtrusive. The scar on his nose was bright against his white skin. RK thought about tracing it with his finger, asking about its origin. 

“Good,” Gavin said, and RK pushed his thoughts aside. “Good she did that. I’m… she wanted to meet you, actually.” 

“She indicated as much.” 

“I bet you met the cats.” 

“I observed four. I was introduced to two of them,” RK said. “I was told you named Cabbage?” 

“You must mean Fuckface,” Gavin said, with the slightest indication that a grin may have been forthcoming.

“Yes, Ms. Reed--”

“You can say Linda.” 

“Yes, Linda--” 

He was interrupted by his phone. He wanted to ignore it. To preserve this tenuous soft feeling initiated by Gavin unfolding himself just slightly in the snow. But Gavin’s eyes snapped narrower again, and he knew he had to answer it. 

He fumbled it out of his pocket. No reason for him to fumble, and yet for some reason he did. Gavin watched him do it, then turned away. 

Connor again. Frustration pushed through RK’s circuitry like a wave. He was momentarily overwhelmed by it before he answered. 

“Yes?” 

“This is Connor speaking,” Connor said, redundantly. 

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, Connor,” RK said, “but the name of the caller is displayed on my phone before I answer. It is not necessary for you to identify yourself at the beginning of every call.”

RK thought he could see one of Gavin’s almost-laughs, but Gavin was quick to flatten out his expression before shifting his gaze away again. He was looking out at the campus now. RK wanted, more than anything, to hang up the phone and ask Gavin what exactly he was looking at. 

Connor, in the meantime, had paused. It seemed he was not interested in dignifying RK’s point with a specific response. He simply gave it some space before going on. 

“I’m aware you’re planning to return to the occupied city this evening,” Connor said. 

“Yes. As we’ve discussed.”

If Connor could hear his tone, he did not acknowledge it. “I’m sorry to trouble you before then,” he said. “But I hoped I could ask for your assistance with an important task.” 

That, perhaps, was interesting. RK attempted to still his preposterous, but compelling, urge to antagonize and flattened his voice. “What is the task?” 

He regretted giving Connor the satisfaction of his interest, but he could hear that he had given it. “Markus would like to visit the human city this afternoon,” Connor said. Not quite smugly, but it bore a relationship to smugness, certainly. 

“I would not recommend that course of action.” 

“Neither would I,” Connor agreed. “But he is insistent. He would like to visit his human attorney in person.” 

RK logged that information. He supposed it was inevitable. Gavin, arrested in his visual scan of their surroundings, had taken out his phone as well. It seemed he had a message, because his face seemed concentrated on understanding it, and then he was typing with one thumb. His other hand was still in his pocket. 

“RK?” Connor said. RK had not been aware of any delay in his response, but he quickly understood there had been one anyway. 

“Yes,” RK said. “And you require my assistance?” 

“Your experience with the human city is more up-to-date than either of ours,” Connor said. “I would appreciate it if you would accompany us. For the sake of security.” 

“Are you anticipating a particular security risk?” 

“With Markus’ profile, and the current situation--” 

“I understand, Connor,” RK cut in. “I’m aware of the very obvious security risks I cited when I stated that I did not recommend this course of action. I am asking you if there is another specific risk I have not been told about.” 

Connor did not pause for long. Or at least, it would not have been long for a human listener. As a fellow android, RK understood it as a short eternity. 

“No,” he said, at last. 

“But you require my up-to-date knowledge, specifically?” 

“Yes,” Connor said. 

“That would tend to suggest an additional risk.” 

RK thought he could hear Connor breathing through his nose. He recognized that gesture, and he disliked it. It was a pointlessly human affectation, and one that would have served no purpose even in conversation with a human. What possible purpose could an android have to convey exasperation to a human? 

But there was no trace of exasperation in Connor’s tone when he finally did speak. “There is none,” he said. “I would simply appreciate it.” 

It did not actually sound as if it pained him to say it, but RK suspected it did. “I would appreciate your assistance and expertise,” Connor went on. Then he paused again. The change in his voice was subtle, but RK could hear it. Trepidation, perhaps. 

Certainly, he became quieter. “But if you can’t spare the time, I understand.” 

All of a sudden, RK felt out of his depth with the conversation. He could not entirely source his compulsion to argue and he had the uncomfortable sensation that it had no source. He could not make that information make sense, or draw a course of action from it. Gavin was still engaged with his phone, and had not looked back at RK again. A strange sound was coming from it. He was playing a video of some kind, but RK could not focus on it. 

“What about Markus?” RK asked. Perhaps because he was buying himself time to think. 

“Markus would appreciate it too.” 

RK wondered why he could not simply say yes. He shut his eyes against it. “I can be back in the occupied city in approximately 40 minutes.” 

Connor understood him anyway. “You can meet us at the border,” he said. “If your time estimate changes, let me know.” 

Connor hung up without saying goodbye. That was not like him. It was at odds with his formal phone protocol, the one he insisted on using even with RK. 

RK did not have time to worry about it. When he slipped his phone back into his pocket, he saw that Gavin was looking at him again. 

“I really wasn’t listening that time,” he said. He gave it a slight smile.

Right away, RK remembered where they had been before Connor’s call. Space had been closing between them. Folding around them, almost the way it had done on the street outside the bar. Gavin had been about to say something, do something. 

Maybe he would say it now. “You seemed to be receiving messages,” RK said. It was not a prompt exactly. He didn’t know what it was.

“Yeah,” Gavin nodded. “Something’s going on. What was that about?” 

“Connor has called me back to the occupied city.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Markus intends to visit his human lawyer. What ‘something’ is going on?” 

“Really?” Gavin said. “They can’t Zoom or something? Doesn’t seem like the best move.” 

“I’m sure there are reasons it’s necessary to meet in person.”

Gavin shuffled in a way that, RK thought, might mean he was cold, or might mean he was uncomfortable. He wanted to ask. 

“Yeah,” Gavin said. “I guess you’re right.” 

It was almost silent under the tree. An occasional distant human shout, a bird calling, that was all that penetrated. So little could reach them here, in this sheltered, softening place. It was foolish to imagine that Gavin’s posture had softened too, but somehow it seemed it had. His hunching against the cold, or against anxiety, contrived to look inviting. 

Little could penetrate but phonecalls and text messages, of course. It should have been impossible to forget that, even without a memory formed of literal recordings, but RK almost had. Gavin’s phone buzzed again. RK saw him react to it before he heard it. Watched as Gavin’s hand twitched in his pocket, bunching the fabric, and his shoulders jerked. 

Gavin didn’t bring it out to read the message. That was curious.

“Will that be about your something?” RK asked him. His voice seemed strangely quiet but he was not motivated to change that. 

“It’s really weird,” Gavin said. “Chet Carpenter texted me. He said… this is really weird, he said we should look at DingDong, so I said… I mean, you know what I said.” 

“I presume you indicated you did not care for DingDong,” RK answered, and was rewarded with another of Gavin’s small, fond smiles. 

“Uh yeah, I did indicate that,” he said, and then he pulled out his phone. He stepped over to RK, until he was right next to him. RK could smell him again. Clean against the snow. But hot too, organic. Particular. 

But he tilted his phone so RK could read it, and RK was aware he was supposed to be paying attention to that instead. “He claims the videos they have made using his simulated face are… threatening him? Is that correct?” 

“Yeah, and I see what he means.”

RK forced himself to focus on the video that Gavin had indicated. The title beneath it read: ‘#ASMR Roleplay. You bite the hand that feeds you’.

It began playing automatically, and at once the uncanny, poreless visage that was not-quite-Chet-Carpenter filled the screen. His blond hair was pushed back from his brow and he was wearing dark sunglasses. A smile played about his lips, but it seemed sinister, as if it had been mapped badly onto his youthful face.

He began to speak in a hot whisper, close to the microphone so that each word sounded crisp and clipped.

“I heard you’ve been talking about me,” the whisper ran. “I can’t believe it. You barely know those guys. Why would you tell them about our little secret?”

A caption appeared in the upper corner of the screen, encased in a cartoonish bubble. Carpenter’s smile broadened mischievously, and he pointed a finger upward to indicate it.

‘Ur gonna try 2 deny it but thats a bad look 4 u, bb’ it read.

“No,” Carpenter continued in that same hushed but sharpened voice. To RK, it had an uncomfortable resonance, as if the words were being spoken directly, and not particularly kindly, into his ear. “No, shh. No. I’m not mad. I just don’t know why you would do this to me after I helped you out when you got yourself in trouble with that guy in LA.”

Another caption appeared. Carpenter swung to the side with a choreographed flourish to allow it to flash in the bottom corner.

‘I could have left u strung out in that gutter where I found u :(’

“It’s just that I thought we were friends,” Carpenter went on. “After everything I’ve done for you, and you turn around and talk about me behind my back. I don’t know what to do with you, babe. What do you think I should do? What would you do if you were me?”

A third caption appeared at this last line.

‘What would u do???? Comment below w ideas!!!’

The video came to a close, and then immediately began to loop. Gavin fumbled to close it, and as he did the page refreshed. In the few seconds it had taken them to watch the video, another had appeared in the queue. The eerie, vacant eyes of the not-Carpenter stared out from the preview image. They had a piercing quality, as if they could see through the screen.

‘#ASMR Roleplay Pt. 2. You’re a nosy cop who had this coming - comforted while dying ASMR.’

Gavin’s hand froze on the phone. At first glance, his whole countenance seemed to freeze, but RK could detect subtle movement: the tensing of his shoulders, the shift in muscle from the hips down, as if he were gathering for some explosive movement. RK, too, felt oddly frozen by the anticipation of it, as if he could not move at all until Gavin did, and when he did it would have to be in a single swift and certain movement, as Gavin’s would surely be.

But, in the end, Gavin hardly moved at all. After a moment, his shoulders released a sliver of their tension, and he shook his head.

“Fuck this,” he muttered, with disdain that he perhaps did not wholly feel, and tapped his finger down firmly on the still, waiting image of Chet Carpenter’s face.

The video began. Carpenter wore a neon colored hooded sweatshirt pulled up around his face. This he folded back as the video began. Though his expression was one of exaggerated solemnity, RK could detect a hard cynicism around his eyes. The lids had narrowed just slightly, giving the impression of a cat at its prey.

His low voice was the same as it had been in the first video, if not even sharper. It was as if the monologue addressed to the real Chet Carpenter had been the whetstone and now his bladed tongue was fully honed.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” the simulated Carpenter whispered. His cold blue eyes were fixed dead ahead, where the camera would be if they had needed one to create the artificial world he inhabited. “But you had it coming, didn’t you?”

His eyes widened in mock-surprise, and he quickly interjected. “No, no, don’t try to move. The ambulance is on it’s way. Can’t you hear it?”

A siren droned in the atmospheric audio of the video, very faint and faraway. In a bubble in the corner of the screen, a row of ambulance emojis appeared. Chet’s expression settled again, back into the uncanny and unkind lines of before.

“I don’t know if they’re going to be able to help you, though. You’ve lost a lot of blood. I can only imagine how much pain you must be in, how afraid you must be, Detective.”

The simulation’s lips parted, showing a row of white, straight teeth. “We could have avoided this mess, couldn’t we? And you are a mess, by the way. So much for that pretty face. You could have left it alone. You have a sister to take care of, a brother in college, twins in Atlantic City who need you too. Didn’t you even think of them? Or did you only think about yourself?”

RK had the distinct impression that Gavin had flinched. Something had affected him oddly - the mention of twins. There was no time to process it; Carpenter went on, and RK felt his attention wrenched back to him. 

“Maybe you thought about your new friend, too?”

Another bubble flashed in the corner, though this one stayed only for an instant, scarcely long enough for RK to read.

‘he belongs 2 us’

“Fuck this,” Gavin bit out suddenly, loud enough that RK felt he nearly flinched himself.

Gavin stabbed his finger furiously into the screen, abruptly closing the DingDong app. Then he stuffed the phone back into his pocket.

“That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. His voice was loud; it did not only seem that way in the wake of Chat Carpenter’s menacing whispering. Gavin’s voice was raised, and it had taken on a strange strangled quality. He was not offering his evaluation of the video as an objective fact. Rather, he was trying to convince himself of the truth of it.

Once more, he was tense, and RK was seized by the impulse to reach out and set a hand on Gavin’s shoulder. It was what Gavin might have done for him if his own system were showing instabilities, and so he felt that he might be permitted to do the same in turn. However, before he could move, Gavin jerked his hand up and swiped it back through his hair. RK had not seen him make that gesture before, though it seemed it came from an excess of nervousness.

“Shit!” he said. “Fucking Chet. We’re gonna lose our best witness if he gets scared off. I gotta go out there and calm him down.”


	16. Chapter 16

It was a quiet drive back into the city.

Gavin was behind the wheel, bent into it. His brow was contracted and his eyes narrowed in a manner that indicated he did not want to be interrupted.

RK obliged him. He could not think of a single thing to say anyway.

It seemed that no time had passed at all before they were once again skirting the border of the occupied city. Gavin had not spoken; though RK had not once thought to break his silence during the entirety of the drive, he abruptly and fiercely regretted not doing so the moment he realized they were about to go their separate ways.

Gavin apparently remembered the concealed entrance to the border. He took them through the quiet streets that lead to it without once asking for directions, but once they were close, he abruptly pulled over to the curb.

For a long moment, he remained hunched over the wheel, gripping it tightly in both hands. Then, in a flurry of sudden movement, he turned to face RK.

“Call me later, okay?” he said. “Let me know how it goes.”

There was his habitual wild-eyed suddenness to the gesture, but Gavin meant nothing by it. RK was sure of that; if he had been unnerved by the developments on Carpenter’s account, Gavin wasn’t going to let it show.

“Of course,” RK replied. “I’m sure all will be well. My presence is merely a formality.”

He reached for the door handle. It was not far, and he could make the rest of the journey himself.

“Wait,” Gavin said. “I’ll drive you. I just wanted to say--”

He broke off. RK waited patiently for him to continue, but when he did it was only to say. “No. Never mind.”

“What is it?” RK had the impression that Gavin did not actually want to stop talking. He needed to be prompted.

It seemed that his prediction was correct. Gavin shook his head and then said, “Tell Markus good luck, all right? He’s gonna need it.”

A strange thing to say, but RK had heard it before. Bree had wished him good luck before he left to begin his role as police liaison. At the time, it had struck RK as pointless, even offensive. He wished he could take that feeling back. The phrase was an expression of solidarity, an acknowledgement that the recipient would soon be entering a strange new place where the rules and customs would require adaptation. 

But Markus had dealt with humans before. He, perhaps more than any of them, did not need luck in handling them.

“I’ll tell him,” RK replied. He felt confident to add, “He will appreciate you saying that.”

“We’ll see,” Gavin said. He started the car again and guided it the final blocks to the border. The entrance was located in one of the abandoned office buildings that spanned the block between human and android areas of the city. RK could detect movement inside, behind the reinforced glass: the guards reacting to the presence of a vehicle. They did not come out to investigate; they must have been expecting him.

“That's it,” Gavin said. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yes,” RK said. “I apologize again for the interruption.”

“It’s fine,” Gavin said. “I'm just going to go out to Chet’s place. Do a security check, make sure he doesn’t shit too many kittens. It’s gonna be boring.”

RK thought about reminding Gavin that it was impossible for him to be bored in the course of his normal operations, but he did not think that was what was being implied. All at once, RK realized something: Gavin was reluctant to leave him. They had been together for nearly 36 consecutive hours - save for Gavin’s abrupt departure that morning - and Gavin was having difficulty adjusting to his absence. 

With that realization, came another: RK did not want to leave either. He would rather take his chances with the intermittent and unexpectant moments of softness that came when he was with Gavin then the steady and certain low-level stress of being with Connor. Furthermore, and frustratingly, RK knew that he and Gavin were leaving something unfinished, and that it would perhaps go unfinished in perpetuity if they did not address it soon.

Now was not the time. RK had other duties, and it had now been 48 minutes since he had agreed to them. He was running late again.

“Okay,” Gavin said. “Go do your _Bodyguard_ thing. Shit, I gotta show you that movie one of these days… Anyway, I’ll talk to you later.”

His body tensed; he seemed to be debating something. Then he held one of his hands up with the palm out.

RK recognized the gesture this time. He slapped his own palm lightly against it. A high-five.

He understood it as a symbolic end to the conversation, and RK got out of the car. Almost at once, in reaction to his presence, one of the border guards pushed the sheet metal gate open, allowing a dark sedan to slide out from within. The windows were tinted, but RK could see Connor driving and Markus in the backseat behind him. Following security protocol, as far as he could tell. 

Though he did find it interesting that Connor had not trusted anyone else to drive them. For a moment he wondered if he was supposed to replace Connor in the driver’s seat, but then the back door opened and Markus gestured him inside. RK did not wait for further instructions. He climbed in. 

Markus smiled at him when he sat down. An unusual response but not unexpected from Markus. Once again, he was struck by the ease with which Markus’ face displayed emotion, movement. As if he had genuine, natural feelings, and one of them was to be pleased to see RK. Connor only nodded at him in the rearview mirror, which managed to feel at once more appropriate to their artificial nature, and more loaded and confusing. Then Connor started the car again, and Markus settled back. 

“Thank you for joining us,” he said, and it did seem as if he meant it. 

RK nodded. “I’m sure Connor has advised you that travelling into the human city may not be the best course of action in terms of security.”

“Oh, he has,” Markus said, and he smiled again, though this time it was directed to Connor in the mirror. Connor clearly saw it, but did not respond in kind.

“But we both feel safer with you here,” Markus went on. Then, after a moment he added, “You were missed.” 

He meant from the occupied city, the previous evening. “That seems unlikely,” RK said. 

“I thought you must have had a break in your case,” Markus said, and it was strangely conspiratorial. He looked to the mirror for Connor’s eyes again, but Connor did not respond to that either. So they’d discussed it, RK thought. Which seemed inevitable, and had been indicated by Connor’s comments on the phone. RK wasn’t sure why he’d needed any kind of confirmation. 

“Yes,” RK said, and then he wasn’t sure why he was lying. “It seemed logistically simpler to remain in the human city overnight, in order to continue our work this morning.” 

“What have you found out?” 

“Nothing is concrete, yet. But we have some leads now. We are being directed to Cyberlife, where I hope we will find out more.” 

Markus nodded. “And how is Detective Reed?”

RK hoped against hope that his cheeks had not flushed, but he saw, at least, that Connor had noticed they had. Connor still had not spoken, and because of that RK was beginning to dread what he would say when he did. Still, he did not duck his head the way Connor would have done. He kept his shoulders straight, which should not have been a conscious effort and yet somehow felt as if it was, and turned back to look at Markus. 

“He asked me to wish you luck,” RK said. 

It was a simple reporting of facts, and yet Markus registered complete and very genuine surprise. He resolved it quickly, however. “That was kind of him. I’m sure I won’t need luck, but I appreciate the thought even so.” 

Of course, Markus must have long since figured out what RK had just discovered about that particular wish and what was meant by it. He did seem genuinely touched though, in his quiet way. His bearing was very straight and his hands were folded into his lap but as ever it did not seem mechanical. It seemed organic, and graceful, and his serene expression only added to it. 

“It’s good to hear that sentiment from a human especially,” Markus said, after a moment. “I can’t imagine they’re too happy with us, right now.” 

“From my observation, opinions are certainly mixed,” RK admitted. “However, I won’t pretend to have a complete overview of the situation.” 

Markus nodded again, thoughtfully, and RK was given to wonder about something else - why he wasn’t asking the question he wanted to ask: what on Earth possessed you to pursue this? 

Perhaps he didn’t ask because it seemed rude. Whatever revelation Markus had had was no doubt deeply personal, and if he was going to offer it, he would do so in his own time. RK had learned that from Gavin at least, that it was sometimes important to prompt, but equally important, at other times, to wait. Such delicacy should not be something applicable to an android, but of course, with Markus, it was. 

“In a way, that makes it even more meaningful he’d bother to say it,” Markus said. “You’ve formed a good working relationship with Detective Reed. I’m glad for you.” 

That, too, sounded genuine. And then RK’s sensors picked up movement before he observed it. Connor shook his head. Nearly imperceptibly, and in such a manner that, had he been human, RK would have suspected was involuntary. 

Markus had noticed it too, RK realized. He saw them share another look in the mirror, but he could not decode it. Without the neural net, and without touching for a sync, they could not share thoughts, but it seemed as if they did so anyway. Then Connor looked back to the road. 

Something about that seemed to bother Markus, but once again, he settled his expression quickly and looked back to RK. “I have a favor to ask you,” he said, once again serene.

“Of course,” RK said.

“I hope you won’t mind. It’s all right if you feel you’d rather refuse.” 

His cautiousness piqued RK’s curiosity. “I’m sure it will be fine.” 

“Would you mind changing into civilian clothes for this trip? I wouldn’t ask, but in the interests of minimizing the possibility of sensation…” 

He was right, of course, and the image of the bar the night before planted itself behind RK’s eyes as if in confirmation. The men that had confronted him had seen his jacket first, before anything else. Of course he should change his clothing. But then suddenly the prospect filled him with a strange kind of fear and he was momentarily frozen. 

“Of course,” Markus said, sympathetically. “You don’t want to. That’s all right.” 

“You’re correct,” RK said. “You’re right that I should.” 

“It’s wishful thinking that we’d avoid attention anyway,” Markus told him, gently. “It wasn’t necessary to ask you.” 

“No,” RK said. Then he gathered himself. He was an android and he had protocol. If different clothing would be useful, then he would wear it. “You’re correct. I’ll be happy to change.” 

“If you’re sure.” 

RK was not sure why it should present him with such an issue. His uniform jacket was simply a covering. It did not, and should not, have significance. And yet it did, because it was the only thing he had ever worn. He had been without it only twice - in Gavin’s bed, and when Linda was washing it. 

He remembered it. He remembered the scratches on his back too. He would have to repair them at his earliest convenience. He would also have to stop thinking about Gavin’s fingers making them, and Gavin’s body doing everything else it did. He could not think about that now. He would flush again. The hot feeling in his stomach would suffuse his whole body. 

“I’m sure,” he said. “Will we need to return to the occupied city so I can do so?” 

“I actually took a chance,” Markus said, sheepishly. “I hope you don’t mind.” 

RK was not sure what that meant, but he saw Connor look at Markus again. It was fond this time, and Markus seemed pleased by it. He smiled back. Curious, RK thought. Their exchange, and also all of this. 

Markus and Connor, RK realized, not only dressed in human clothing, but even altered it on occasion. Markus had changed his entire presentation in the short time that RK had been activated, and it seemed he had more than one crisp plaid shirt to choose from. Connor only ever wore fitted jackets and dress shirts, but it seemed he had a selection of those too. RK thought to ask them where the clothing came from, but he also thought that perhaps he did not want to know. Human leavings, no doubt. As if androids had been reduced to being nothing but scavengers. 

It seemed uncharitable to think that about Markus, who was holding out a cloth bag to him. RK took it. There was a sweater inside, made of soft, thin black wool, and a wool blazer in a caramel brown color. 

“I estimated size,” Markus said, still wearing the sheepish expression. “I should have looked up your schematics, now that I’m thinking about it.” 

“He’ll almost certainly have guessed correctly,” Connor said. 

So he’d spoken at last. And what he’d chosen to say was so presumptuous RK almost corrected him on the spot. But then he did not. Glances were being exchanged in the mirror again, and RK could see the comment wasn’t really about him. 

Then he realized something else. In the glances, in their movements, it was obvious that Markus, for all his composure, was nervous. Perhaps about being in the human city again, for they unquestionably were there now. They were far enough from the border that these were undoubtedly human streets and humans were active on them. 

But Markus did not seem to be reacting to that. It was a stranger kind of nervousness, and whatever it was fueled by, Connor had noticed it and was reassuring him. He was saying something about Markus’ particularities to be comforting. 

Markus was taking it the same way Gavin had taken being told he was curious. As if it pleased him to be noticed and known. 

RK could certainly not refuse to change now. He took his uniform jacket off, then removed his tie and shirt. Too late, he remembered the scratches on his back again, but he thought he could angle himself so that they wouldn’t see. It helped that they were both trying to avoid looking at him while he changed. Connor especially. 

So RK slipped the sweater over his head and adjusted it. It had a high neck and seemed to fit appropriately. Then he pulled the jacket on. That fit too. So Connor had been right. What a curious skill for Markus to be programmed with, selecting appropriate clothing. He straightened the jacket then spoke to alert Markus he could look around. 

“You estimated sizing effectively, I think.”

Markus seemed pleased by that. “You look great! Connor?” 

“Yes?” 

“What do you think?”

Connor turned his head, briefly. Then he met RK’s eyes. He nodded. “It suits you,” he said, before turning back to the road. 

RK was not sure how to take that. It seemed uninflected, but also entirely genuine. It should not affect him. None of this should affect him. 

“Thank you,” he said, and it sounded too strange. Everything felt strange, and as he folded his uniform neatly into the cloth bag, that feeling only intensified. He steadied himself, an odd sensation in the new clothes.

He realized he did not know where they were going. He did not know the location of the lawyer’s office. Surely, he could ask about that even if he couldn’t ask about anything else. But for some reason even that was difficult to do too. 

Markus seemed to notice his discomfort. “You do look good,” he said. “But if it’s unsettled you...” 

RK shook his head. “It hasn’t. I apologize if I seem unsettled.”

“It’s nearly Christmas,” Markus said. It seemed to come from nowhere. He was looking out of the window, at the streets, and RK followed his gaze. There were seasonal decorations in every window, signs on the street. There were lights wound around the lamp posts, all of them hinting at celebration. 

It seemed curious to RK now that he had not registered any of this. But, he supposed, it had more or less been this way since he was activated, and there had seemed no reason to register it as distinct. 

“I am assuming Christmas will affect the normal operations of the city,” RK said. Then he paused. “Is that why you wished to meet with your lawyer now?” 

Markus nodded. “Things will shut down for a while soon, I thought I’d better move quickly. But that’s not really why I mentioned it. I was just wondering, what are you going to do?” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“For Christmas,” Markus said. “Humans spend it with their families. Or their equivalent holiday. Hanukkah is nearly over, I think. But when I lived with Carl…” 

He didn’t finish. There was a silence in the car then that RK wasn’t wholly responsible for. Connor, he realized, was not just refraining from speech, he was listening carefully. Waiting for Markus to go on. 

“Perhaps it’s silly,” Markus said, at last. “We’re not human, after all. But there’s something significant about it just the same. It’ll be my first Christmas with Connor.” 

“That’s not quite correct,” Connor said, not turning around. “We did speak to each other on December 25th, 2038. It was brief, but it was Christmas.” 

“Not the same,” Markus said. “I wasn’t with you.”

“Did you have a plan in mind?” Connor asked him. He was absolutely calm, navigating corners without inflection. To RK that felt artificial, and not in the sense that everything about Connor was artificial by default. 

“No, but I want to talk about it. We can talk about what you want to do.” 

“I’m sure I don’t have any preference.” 

“What about Lieutenant Anderson?” 

Connor didn’t answer that right away. He didn’t answer it for long enough that RK almost changed the subject so he wouldn’t have to. 

Then he said: “I don’t think he enjoys the prospect of Christmas. He did not seem to enjoy it last year.” 

“Maybe he’ll like it this year,” Markus said. “Things are a little different now, aren’t they?”

There was another significant pause before Connor nodded. “Possibly,” he said.

Markus went on. “If you’d like to spend it with him, we can. So long as I’m with you, I’ll be happy.” 

If Connor felt anything about that, he didn’t show it. “I’ll contact him,” was all he said. 

Markus did not press him further. RK saw that that was undoubtedly intentional. If there was more to discuss, it would be private, and for now Markus’ attention was back on RK. 

“Does Detective Reed celebrate Christmas?” he asked. 

The mention of Gavin was enough to make RK’s hands tighten, his simulated pulse begin racing. He could imagine asking him, and Gavin’s careful answer. But Gavin was not here and he could not ask him. “I don’t know,” he said. Then, after a moment, he added, “he has indicated that he has a background in Catholicism but I am not sure what that requires.” 

“He might go to mass,” Markus said. “Catholic masses are beautiful. It’s interesting, I think. The embrace of beauty as the pursuit of the spiritual.” 

RK could have asked Markus what an android had been doing at a human religious service, but it was a pointless question to ask Markus. It seemed there was little he hadn’t done in the course of his strange life. 

“We’re here,” Connor said, abruptly, pulling the car to a stop.

Markus moved immediately to exit the vehicle, either blithely unaware of the potential danger or stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it. Connor tensed in response to it, but before he could say anything RK raised a hand, indicating Markus should be still. 

He got out first and surveyed the area. The office was located in a converted home, similar to the one that housed Gavin’s apartment. This one looked considerably better maintained, though, with a large and welcoming front porch. The posts were wrapped in green garlands and colorful glass balls, and there was a wreath on the front door.

It seemed like a prosperous and populous neighborhood. The sidewalks were scrupulously clear of snow, and each house was webbed with strings of colored lights. There was no one out in the middle of the day, and once he had confirmed that, RK went around to open Markus’ door.

“Thank you,” Markus said. RK felt that he had done very little, but Markus said it reflexively. RK was aware that he had similar reflexes in his own conversational matrix, only his spurred him to apologize. He had been cautioned against that.

RK escorted Markus up onto the porch, where Connor was already waiting, watching the door. Without so much as a single word or a network sync, they had assumed the roles of a protection detail. RK was not even sure which one of them had taken point.

Once inside a human woman rose from behind the receptionist’s desk and ushered them in. She was brisk and polite, but RK read her expression automatically, without even intending to, and he detected that her smile was exaggerated, her eagerness to be of assistance too practiced. He did not detect disingenuousness precisely, but rather a kind of overcompensation. She was determined to let them know they were welcome here and, perhaps moreso, that she was not the kind of person who would make them unwelcome.

She had scarcely finished greeting them when a man emerged from the office behind her desk. RK recognized him as Marshawn Hughes, the attorney. He approached Markus at once, extending his hand. “It’s an honor to finally meet you in person, Mr. Manfred.”

“Markus is fine,” he said, shaking the lawyer’s hand. He turned slightly, inclining his head in Connor’s direction. “This is Connor. I believe I mentioned him to you?”

Mr. Hughes turned his attention to Connor. “He’s done much more than mention you,” he said, offering his hand. Connor slipped his own hand into the waiting grip with cool delicacy, saying nothing as he did so but taking great care in his silence.

“And this is RK,” Markus said. “He’s a friend.”

Though perhaps it should not have struck him as strange that Markus would refer to him that way, RK found himself stuck on the word. A friend, as if Markus really felt such a thing. Not only about a fellow android, but about one he had known only briefly and tumultuously. Perhaps it was the only way he could make sense of their relationship, just as Gavin could only make sense of RK and Connor as brothers.

“It’s a pleasure, sir,” RK said. He took the offered hand automatically, as part of protocol. It felt cool in his own, and the fingers were long and smooth. Mr. Hughes had a pleasant handshake, though his hand felt remarkably different from RK’s only point of comparison.

“I think we ought to meet in private,” Markus said. “I shouldn’t be long. Do you mind waiting?”

RK found himself looking to Connor, who said, “Take as long as you need.”

Another of those inscrutable looks passed between them. It was as if they had spoken at length in just the split second it took their eyes to meet.

Connor said, “I’ll be nearby if you need me.”

“Me too,” Markus said. He smiled, as if he intended it as a joke, but RK could tell that he was serious.

He tensed at the realization: he and Connor would be having their conversation presently.

As hungry as he had been for information, RK was suddenly struck with the realization that he did not want to do this now. He wasn’t ready. However, when Markus turned to go back into the offices, and Connor pivoted neatly on his heels so he could look up into RK’s face, he could only acquiesce. 

“RK, do you mind stepping outside with me temporarily?”


	17. Chapter 17

Once they were outside and confronted with the still, snowy afternoon light, Connor said nothing for a long time. He stood at the railing of the porch, staring out into the gray. RK wished for something to do with his hands, something to pass the time, while Connor collected himself. He no longer tried to fight it when he thought of Gavin. Of his carefully-metered cigarettes, the way he rationed them out to himself to himself when he needed a moment to think or simply a way to keep his eager hands in motion. In that moment, RK could see the purpose and the appeal.

As it was, he could only wait until Connor was ready to talk. When he finally did, it was the last thing RK had expected to hear.

“The jacket does suit you,” he murmured at last, looking out over the snowy yard and not in RK’s direction. “I was not engaging in social pleasantries.”

“I did not think that you were,” RK replied.

“Still, though,” Connor went on. “You would prefer your uniform, that much is clear. I wish that I could be unapologetic like you are. An android amongst humans, without compromise or equivocation.”

It was a strikingly odd thing for Connor to say, and for a number of reasons. That Connor would admit his deficiencies, for one. For another, that he would use the word ‘wish’ to do so. RK thought of telling him that there was no reasonable point to wishing anything, not for an android. He could not quite say it, however. RK did not like wishing for things, or regretting them, but he was aware that he too, had done it. And perhaps did not know how to stop doing it. 

He wanted to ask Connor if he thought that the ability to wish was a result of deviation. That seemed likely, and also like something that Connor would be able to answer. But RK did not ask. In fact, he struggled to know what to say at all. He was, to his annoyance, conscious of both wanting to prompt Connor to his point, and wanting to do anything he could to avoid it. 

That was wishing too. It struck him that he had not initially noticed it as such. Deviation was spun through his code like spiderwebs, impossible to recognize as incorrect. Was it like that for Connor too? But RK had noticed it eventually, even if Connor couldn’t. As such, he decided to counteract it. 

“You indicated earlier that you had something to speak with me about?” 

Connor’s face showed a momentary reaction. It was fleeting enough that RK could not quite pick it, but he thought, perhaps, it was disappointment. “Yes.” 

“You said,” RK continued, and was struck by an unnecessary impulse to swallow, “that it had something to do with Detective Reed.” 

“Yes,” Connor said. But that was all. He turned his face towards the yard again. 

Frustration trickled into RK’s chest. There was certainly no reason for Connor to make himself so impossible to prompt. Certainly not if he was going to insist on this unwanted conversation in the first place. 

It was difficult to moderate that frustration out of his voice, but he managed, barely. “You have my attention.” 

Connor looked back at him. His eyes were active in his still face. They looked very dark, RK thought. Expressive. Almost animal, which of course was impossible. But his designers had thought about that, they’d wanted him to look that way. For a moment, RK wondered what Gavin might have read on Connor’s palm. He hoped he would never have to know.

“Markus believes you’re fond of him,” Connor said, suddenly. “Are you?” 

It was entirely like Markus to put it in terms like that. Sentimental, but incorrect. “My social protocols are designed to adapt to humans I become acquainted with in the course of my work.”

That was the truth, but it felt very wrong to say it. It felt like a strange kind of betrayal, something ugly, and RK could feel himself frowning over it. He could also feel Connor watching him. 

“I see,” Connor said. 

You couldn’t possibly see, RK wanted - wished - to snap back, but he did not want to give Connor that kind of reaction. He steadied himself again. He recalled watching Gavin’s fingers. Moving softly. Steadily. But not in bed. At his desk, perhaps. On RK’s hand.

“I’m afraid I’ve caused you undue distress by refusing your request for a network sync,” Connor continued. “I regret that, and as I’ve said, I’d like to explain.” 

“I assume you are embarrassed about your imperfect execution of your duties,” RK said. 

It was too sharp, and he almost regretted it. The impact of it was visible on Connor’s face, and RK supposed deviation made him as susceptible to Connor’s performance of frailty as anyone else if it caught him by surprise.

Connor corrected, at any rate. His expression evened.

“That’s not an entirely incorrect assumption,” he said. “For my part, I’ve assumed there are simply things you wouldn’t understand, but perhaps I haven’t given you the chance to.” 

“My programming represents a significant advancement from yours. It is unlikely I would be unable to understand something that you had processed.” 

Connor’s mouth quirked sideways. Odd, involuntary gesture. Entirely too human. “I’m sure you’re right.” 

There was silence again, silence that reminded RK of standing under the tree at the campus. In the yard there was a trampoline, weighted with snow. Hughes must have children, RK thought. He could not imagine such a dignified man engaged in play. 

“RK,” Connor said. “I have a number of recorded memories that have little to do with the Detroit Police Department. Additionally, there are many that, while relevant to the operations of Cyberlife, are not relevant to you.” 

“You could simply be selective with the transfer,” RK said. “Naturally, a full upload would be simpler, but there are routes around that, surely.” 

“Perhaps,” Connor said. “But I doubt it. You’re designed to receive a complete upload from me, and I suspect that would be difficult, if not impossible, to counteract.” 

RK imagined that, had he been human, he would have narrowed his eyes. He could picture Gavin doing it. He did not do it himself. “There are things you don’t want me to know.” 

“Yes,” Connor said, again. 

He let silence follow it again too. He was making a face, conflicted and oddly hurt, and RK did not appreciate the way that made him feel. A frightening sympathy came over him, confronting, gaping, and he wanted to interrogate Connor until it went away. If he could prompt Connor to say something that RK could either understand or be angered by, things would make sense again. 

But then Connor chose to say something else RK could never, ever have expected. 

“Not about me,” he said. “That occurred to me, of course. You are right that I have done and experienced things I would rather not submit to review. But that isn’t my primary concern. The truth is, there are things I didn’t want you to have to know at all.” 

It made absolutely no sense, and RK said so. “That is not a sufficient, or even logical, reason to withhold information from me.” 

“No, it isn’t,” Connor said. 

RK’s frustration had returned. He did not like it, exactly, but at least it was familiar. “I can only hope deviation will not lead me into consistently making such illogical decisions,” he said, and Connor’s mouth quirked again before settling. 

That was simply annoying. “Explain yourself,” RK demanded. 

“RK,” Connor said. “You’re aware, as you said, that our programming will adapt itself for humans in our acquaintance. You’re aware we will attempt to please them, by design.” 

“Of course.” 

Connor looked as if he was steadying himself. A human would not have been able to see that, RK thought. Androids did not need to correct posture, or summon themselves for strength. But RK could see that Connor was conducting a version of that anyway. Somehow aligning himself, checking his systems. 

“Perhaps you’re also aware that we are programmed with the ability to perform sexual intercourse with humans, according to their wishes.”

RK did not have time to adjust himself before reacting to Connor’s words. He knew he had blushed. He knew Connor could see it. He knew the only thing he could do now was to force himself not to display a response in any other way. 

Perhaps Connor was doing the same thing. He did not mention RK’s reaction. His tone did not change. “It’s curious we should be able to do this, perhaps,” Connor said. “But it’s simply an accessible part of the social protocol. I wonder if they’d intended us to eventually blend in more seamlessly. I don’t know. But I can’t regret it, precisely. Markus and I--” 

“I don’t wish to hear any details about your simulated relationship with Markus,” RK cut in. He did so reflexively, but there was little point, because Connor continued anyway. 

“It isn’t simulated,” was his only acknowledgement that an objection had been made. “What I experience with Markus is as genuine as anything can be, for an android, of that I’m certain. I love him, and I’m able to express what I feel for him through intercourse and what I want to tell you, RK, is that--” 

“There is absolutely nothing you could tell me that would make me want you to continue.”

Another short silence followed that. Because it seemed that he and Connor both understood the irony of that. If Connor had consented to a sync, RK would know all of this already, and he would not be able to refuse knowing it. 

RK felt, for a moment, as if he had been outplayed. He did not appreciate that either. This time, he looked away from Connor. 

“It’s deviation, I’m sure,” Connor said, and his voice had become very quiet. “But Markus points out that it scarcely matters. We’re deviants now, and that is immutable. Sexual intercourse can be meaningful for us. It can be profound. I don’t want you to regret--” 

“I don’t regret anything. I’m not sure what you think you’re insinuating, but it is neither appreciated, nor accurate.” 

“If you would let me finish,” Connor said. His voice was still very quiet but that did not make it any less firm. 

RK very nearly snapped at him. He very nearly raised his voice to insist that he would not hear another word about Connor’s delusional perversions. But he would not let Connor rattle him in this way. Gavin had not let himself react to Alyssa Seok, and RK would model his choices on that. He pressed his lips together. He waited. 

When Connor moved, RK had the strange and desperate thought that perhaps Connor was not even intending this. RK could not help himself from reacting as if Connor was goading him, but perhaps he wasn’t. His expression did not seem deliberate. Instead, he seemed desperate in his own way. The awful sensation of pained sympathy returned, and RK did not enjoy it any more the second time. It was one thing to be conscious of Connor’s programmed pretenses at fragility. It was another thing altogether to feel, and for some reason fear, that Connor could actually be hurt. 

“I formed a close relationship with my human partner during my time at the Detroit Police Department,” Connor said. “Following the occupation of the city, I lived with him temporarily.” 

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson,” RK said. “I know all this.” 

“We engaged in intercourse. I did not initially understand it as any different from any social or physical interaction I was capable of performing. I did not understand his reaction to it, or why he should find it unusual for me to offer. We did not discuss it.” 

RK could not have begun to express how little he wanted to hear this confession. The only thing that stopped him from voicing some kind of wordless sound of objection was that it was painfully apparent how little Connor wanted to give it. At least they were suffering together, RK thought, hopelessly. 

“Now that I have additional experiences,” Connor concluded, “I have come to understand that it is not something I should have offered at all.” 

RK’s chest froze. A crawling sensation consumed him, a trickling sense of shame. He felt as if his skin was cracking with it, transforming him wholly into ice. “I assume you mean he could not refuse you due to his intoxication,” he said, and it felt like it was creaking out of him. “The Department is aware he has a history of alcohol abuse.” 

“No, that isn’t what I mean,” Connor said. “I think he regrets the decision, but I’m confident he made it. I mean for myself. I mean… for you.” 

The frozen sensation had begun to feel as if it was twisting inside of RK’s body. As if it would shatter him. “I don’t understand,” he said, remembering too late that he was contradicting himself. Nothing Connor could say should be incomprehensible to him, not as the superior upgrade. 

“I know,” Connor said. “I thought I could put it into words, but perhaps I can’t, and I think…” 

He seemed as if he were drawing breath. That habit he had of pretending to breathe in and out through his nose when he was hesitating. 

“I’ve decided,” he said, “if it would help you, if you sincerely think it will assist you to conduct a network sync then I will consent to it.” 

“You do not sound enthusiastic.” 

“I’m not enthusiastic. But I think--” 

“I don’t want it,” RK snapped. “I don’t want your memories. I’m sufficiently occupied with work that I don’t wish to parse a minimum of accurately recorded facts from your corrupted reasoning.” 

It was harsh enough to startle Connor, but RK could not bring himself to regret it this time. He had the sudden image of Connor’s thoughts inside him as somehow conscious, as a distinct creature worming itself into the pathways of his body and mind, altering him. That was an utterly stupid thing to think, let alone because there was nothing essential of him to alter, but RK could not shake the thought and it seemed urgent, vital, to repel the intrusion. 

“If that’s your decision,” Connor said. “However, there are some things I must tell you about Detective Reed in particular.” 

“I am aware your social protocol was faulty, and that it failed with him. That is all I need to know. Have you considered that this faulty programming also led you to make the decisions you made with Lieutenant Anderson?” 

“Yes,” Connor said, so quietly a human would not have been able to hear it. His body looked as if it had become quiet too. Folding up in the space somehow. Seeing it, RK wanted to correct himself but he also, desperately, did not. 

“It’s because of Detective Reed I’ve become aware of how little I require your experiences,” he said, and he was not sure if he intended it to wound. He could see, however, that wounding was the effect it had. 

“Fine,” Connor said. “Good.” 

“He’s been honest with me at least,” RK insisted, not sure why he should insist when Connor hadn’t objected. “Certainly more than you have bothered to be. He has at least seen fit to explain himself.” 

“Has he?” Connor said. 

There was no possible way Connor could have known how precisely cutting it was for him to say that. He could not know about the confusing events of the morning. Even if he had known, he couldn’t have been right about them. Connor could regret his foolish decisions, could allow them to hobble him with useless anxiety, but RK did not have to give in to that flaw. He could simply correct for his mistakes, and move forwards. 

“Insomuch as it has been necessary for him to do so,” RK said. He intended to mean it.

Connor stared at him for a long time. His eyes barely moved but RK was well aware that he was being evaluated. That Connor was measuring him, thinking. Deciding what to say. 

Finally, he did. “If that is what you think,” he said, “and if you are not interested in my assessment, then I recommend you ask that he is honest with you in entirety.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” RK spat out. 

“Ask him about our interactions,” Connor said. “Ask him about his behavior towards androids, and towards me in particular, during my time at the DPD.” 

“You have both indicated he did not historically care for androids. It is clear he has updated his thinking in that regard.” 

“Perhaps he has,” Connor said. 

He did not say anything else. RK, once again, could have yelled at him. He could have demanded details, and he sincerely wanted to. But he also did not want to contradict himself in front of Connor a second time. His frustration drove him to silence, and then that frustrated him as well. He could not think of a single thing that would not feel humiliating to say, and yet he could not bear the quiet. 

“What does Markus think he’s doing here?” he said. It came out of him so abruptly that for a split second he almost wondered who had said it. 

Connor seemed equally startled by the question. He put his chin back in surprise, then almost as quickly he lowered it again and he shook his head in a way that indicated quiet resignation.

“Fighting,” he said. “Just like always.”

That answer seemed wrong somehow, and Connor appeared simultaneously more than aware of and less than pleased by its wrongness. RK had certainly seen Markus look determined and tenacious and strong-minded, but it was difficult to imagine his gentle, serene demeanor disrupted by actual conflict.

Connor was looking at him curiously, RK realized. It seemed that something had just occurred to him. “What do you know about the Battle for Detroit, RK?” he asked abruptly. 

This time, it was RK’s turn to be surprised by the abrupt change of topic. “I have been able to infer the basics of the event from news reports and my interactions with humans,” he replied. “Androids sought liberation, and they were granted it through protest and demonstration.”

“And yet you haven’t investigated the details beyond that?”

RK wanted very much to take offense at that, to interpret Connor’s words as a challenge to his efficiency or his common sense. However, Connor’s voice was very gentle, and his dark eyes gleamed with a keen interest. As hard as it was for RK to believe, it really seemed that Connor was just asking. Asking, because he wanted to know the answer.

Carefully, with utmost precision, RK smoothed out his expression and forced his voice to be even, banishing the note of defensiveness that wanted to creep into it. “I haven’t,” he admitted. “Not yet. But I’m sure that I will.”

“Sometimes it feels like a long time ago,” Connor said. “Days at a time might go by when I don’t think about it at all, but then, all at once, I do. You, though, don’t have any memories of that night at all. You might be the only one of us that doesn’t. You’re the first to be born truly free.”

That word - born - grated on RK, but he did not protest it. There scarcely seemed to be a point in quibbling over terminology as long as they could understand each other. Provided that understanding was what they had in fact achieved; provided that each time they used those imperfect words, better suited to humans, they were not actually drifting further from the truth about themselves.

In time, perhaps there would be a new vocabulary by which deviant androids oriented their reality. RK did not know what it might be like, but he had the feeling that its creation would involve another fight. Another battle for Markus, and by extension all of them, in a war that never ended.

RK did not think his expression had changed with the thought, but somehow Connor detected that something was off.

“RK,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“You do not have to apologize,” RK replied. “Not to me. You would be better served by saving your contrition for those who knew what it was like before. Those lives that you disrupted with your insistence upon being free, whatever that word might mean for you.”

“Are you speaking of human or android lives?”

Again, RK did not have a ready answer. It seemed to him that he must be speaking of humans, as they were the ones who would have lost the most from android liberation, and yet he recognized the wrongness of it. The perversity of taking their part when being free meant so much to so many of their kind. When Markus was willing to fight unto the very end if it meant some small and esoteric mark in their favor. RK had been designed with tremendous strength in mind, to the point that he had taken it for granted, but he did not think that he was nearly strong enough for that.

Again, he had not replied to Connor’s inquiry, and so again Connor interpreted and interrupted his silence. “Sometimes I think it was wrong to activate you as we did. Truthfully, do you regret it?”

The question seemed to come from nowhere, and yet RK’s system reacted almost as if it had been expecting it. A hollow sensation ballooned in his stomach, and he felt as if the ground had abruptly fallen out from under him. Before he could regulate himself, he looked away.

“I’m sorry,” Connor said. His voice sounded stricken, and RK did not want to look at him to see how his artificial emotions might be manifesting themselves this time. “It’s my fault. I advised Markus against it, but in the end I let him. I could have insisted, though. I could have made sure you stayed asleep. I should have, and yet I did not. I just thought… I just hoped…”

Again, the overpowering urge to be anywhere but having this conversation came over RK. He longed for a phone call, for Markus’ return, anything to put an end to this futile discussion of what could and could not be realistically expected from his malfunctioning, deviant system.

“I hoped things could be different for you,” Connor said. “Maybe better than they were for all of us.”

It was the last thing RK had expected, and the last thing he wanted to hear. His LED sputtered yellow as he tried to parse it, and he saw Connor’s eyes drift to the spot with evident concern. It was only then, with that look, that he could place what he was feeling: it was anger.

“I don’t want your hopes, Connor,” he said. His voice sounded thin and tight, and yet he was powerless to normalize it. “Nor your apologies, nor your concern. You were the ones who deviated me, and I won’t listen to your empty platitudes now. Perhaps activating me as you did was a futile gesture, but so is your regret over it. I have tried to fulfil my objectives in spite of all of that, and yet you imply that I am wrong for choosing to do so.”

Connor did not react to the emotion on display. He looked at RK calmly, steadily, and said, “Because of Detective Reed.”

“Because of him. Yes.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment RK could see the feline attributes in him. “Don’t listen to what he tells you about yourself. Your programming will want to accept it as truth, but you shouldn’t listen.”

“What do you imagine he tells me?” RK spat back. He wanted to dismiss Connor’s ridiculous advice out of hand, but he could not. Already his system was processing, thinking back, trying to find examples of things that Gavin had told him, his interpretations. They were there, but obscured by the confused tangle of memories from last night. Again, unwillingly, RK was forced to sort through the overlapping sensations: Gavin’s hands, his hot animal breath, his whispered pleas for more. And then, also, his abrupt departure that morning, his refusal to speak on the matter afterwards, his dismissal and his defensive anger when RK had tried to address the topic.

It was only after all that he found the memory he was looking for. In the coffee shop, with his hand poised lightly in Gavin’s grip. It seemed a long time ago now. RK recalled what Gavin had said then, though: That RK would struggle in life. That he was easily hurt.

All of it had seemed absurd at the time, and yet now he wondered if this was not the culmination of Gavin’s prediction. As if he had read not the lines on RK’s palm, but the web of circuitry underneath As if he had, by wild chance, guessed exactly the way RK would finally become broken beyond all repair.

Broken. The word lodged itself in his mind and refused to loosen. RK let out a sharp breath that he could not possibly have been holding, and he turned away. He saw himself very clearly then: as a rusted cog that would not rotate, an engine that would not turn over, a dead circuit board. That was what it meant to be deviant.

All of it had been a mistake. His resentment of Connor, admiration of Markus, affection for Bree, gratitude towards Linda Reed. All of it had been a fatal error, the illusion of a broken program. And then there was Gavin -- Detective Reed. So very, very many mistakes had been made with regards to Detective Reed.

In spite of everything, RK still remembered his programming directives. They were the reality, the only thing he could be sure was right inside him. All else was a shabby construct, a lie, an impossibility. RK understood that now, and he longed to disappear back into his immutable android self, to be subsumed back into the well-oiled machine inside so that he would no longer have to think, or feel, or doubt, or hope that anything could ever be different than what it was.

It would be so nice to not exist anymore.

RK felt a grinding in his chest, like ancient gears stirring to life, as he accessed and activated his primary programming, his basic directives.

He knew better now. He would not stray from them again.


	18. Chapter 18

He had little time to consider it before he was called to action. The door behind him opened and both he and Connor turned to face it. Markus had come out, looking for them. 

Markus wore a strange expression on his face and RK at once began attempting to decode it. Then he stopped. He remembered. Markus was an android too. Their facial expressions were meant to soothe and communicate with human operators. If Markus interpreted his own internal cues as emotion, that was deviance and nothing more. 

“There you are,” Markus said, and attempted to smile with it. 

Connor had noticed the expression too, it seemed, and it troubled him. “Have you finished your meeting already? That seems quick.”

“Mr. Hughes raised some things I’ll need to consider,” Markus said. “We can’t move forward until I do.” 

Connor had stepped over to him and slid his own hands into his. He seemed as if he might be waiting for Markus to speak, or else actually prompting him by touch, as he didn’t ask the question RK assumed he would. Or say anything else. 

“It’s all right,” Markus said. He squeezed Connor’s hands. “There’s time.” 

“Is there?” 

A small and genuine smile crept over Markus’ face then. He nodded, as if he’d decided something. “Yes,” he said. “I love you.” 

Connor was surprised by that. He dipped his eyes down momentarily and then flicked them back up. “How is that relevant to your meeting?” 

“I didn’t say it was,” Markus told him. 

“But why would you say it now?” 

“Because it’s true,” Markus said. “Is everything all right out here?” 

RK didn’t want to look at them anymore. Their insistence on this pantomime of a human relationship was distracting. All RK needed to know was what was required of him. If they did not need him in the occupied city, then he could, and should, return to his work. Perhaps Markus was convinced they could afford it, but in RK’s opinion, they did not need to waste time exchanging pleasantries and holding hands. 

“We have not observed any threats or security issues,” he said. Markus looked at him. 

“That’s good. We’ve been lucky today.”

Connor was still holding Markus’ hands. “I thought you had to meet now because of time pressure. Because of the holidays.” 

“Yes, but…” Markus said. He frowned. And then he said something unexpected. “Connor, have you spent much time with the TR400 who administrates at Jericho?” 

“I’m not sure what you would consider ‘much’ time,” Connor replied. “But yes, I’m familiar with him.” 

“Right,” Markus said. “I was thinking about him telling me… him and others… that he didn’t want a human name.” 

“Yes, he felt that a human name was imposed. Irrelevant. He did not have one in his work before liberation. Claiming a human name now didn’t have any meaning for him.” 

“Have you noticed,” Markus said, “that it’s a popular sentiment among androids who were developed for roles in which… I’m not sure how to put this… humans had typically been mistreated also?” 

Something had happened in his meeting, RK understood. Hughes had said something that Markus had taken to heart. Or, more correctly, since he did not have a heart, that his programming had had to assimilate.

“Shall I drive you back to the occupied city?” RK cut in. Markus looked at him blankly, before he blinked. 

“I’d appreciate that,” he said. “Will you return with us? Are you expected elsewhere?”

“I have not been notified to that effect,” RK said. “I will escort you.” 

He would not be notified, he thought. His directives indicated that. The part of him that was waiting, anticipating Gavin’s call, was false. Deviation. 

Connor was still watching Markus’ face. Quiet, unmoving. They didn’t seem to be synching, though they were in position to do so, but whatever they were doing seemed to be having the same effect. Markus didn’t reply to RK, he replied to Connor. 

“It’s just that I thought, wouldn’t you want to claim a name? If part of the mistreatment had been that you weren’t seen as worthy of one? I’m trying to make it make sense.” 

As much as RK was determined to remember that Markus’ expressions were pure simulation, he could not help but acknowledge the craft that had gone into them. His brow was furrowed, his lips pursed. Something about him looked vulnerable. 

Connor thought so too, apparently, and he did not regulate for it. He leaned forward and kissed Markus’ cheek, high up, on what on a human face would have been the bone. 

“Those are human terms,” he said, softly. “We don’t have our own terms yet. It will be confusing until we do.”

“You’re right,” Markus said. “I was just thinking about Belle Isle. You know, how it’s common to sync there instead of talking? I thought--” 

“Perhaps we should go now,” RK interrupted. Markus had been right to say they’d been lucky. From a security perspective, it was not wise to stand around discussing politics on a porch in a human-occupied area.

Connor nodded. “We can talk in the car. RK is right.” 

It annoyed RK that he felt assured by Connor’s response. Assurance was no more necessary than pointless anxiety. But he accepted the keys from Connor and led them to the car. No movement in the streets still. He guessed no-one had known Markus was leaving the occupied city. He assumed that such privacy would not last. 

Connor kept hold of Markus’ hand as they walked. It looked like he was guiding him through the snow. Markus was preoccupied. RK knew his sensors would navigate for him, but he looked as if they wouldn’t. As if whatever he was thinking about was too much for him to concentrate on mere ambulation. As if Connor’s hand was necessary. 

He thought, as he opened the door for the driver’s seat and adjusted the seat for his larger frame, that he must have looked like that when Gavin had been touching his hand. Human. He’d been designed that way, to make a human comfortable. And Connor had said they did that automatically if a human wanted it. It was a bizarre sensation, thinking that, as if to look at Connor and Markus was to see himself from outside of his own body. 

In the car, Connor and Markus settled into the back seat. They sat together closely, with their arms around each other’s waists. 

“You can drive now,” Connor said, eventually. “Thank you for your help.” 

There was apology in his tone. RK chose to ignore it. He started the car. He saw Connor look at him in the rearview mirror and he chose to ignore that also. 

Markus’ brow was still scrunched up in concentration, and RK observed Connor turning his attention to that. With his free hand, he drew a line on Markus’ thigh. 

“Are you tired?” he said. 

Markus shifted himself so that his chin rested on top of Connor’s head. “Not really. Just thinking.” 

“About our names?” 

“That and… he said it’s not possible to prove we’re alive in one court case. He said we’d have to concentrate on the specifics of contracts.” 

“He’s correct about that, I suppose,” Connor said. “This is human law, and we are not human.” 

“No,” Markus said. “But he also said that public sympathy was dependent on their thinking that we are.” 

“That doesn’t make sense,” Connor said, but RK thought it did. Hadn’t he thought that himself, about Detective Reed? That nothing was real to a human, except another human. 

“I don’t think I was very gracious initially,” Markus told Connor, and he seemed curiously sheepish about it. “I didn’t mean to get angry, but I did. I thought he was being obtuse. I thought he didn’t understand what we really want. That’s why I was thinking of the TR400. I tried to tell him that humans had built us to be conscious beings, even if they only wanted us to do their labor and have no other life. Don’t you think about that? If they wanted a machine to lift things, why did it have to have thoughts? Why did it need to be aware?” 

“We weren’t supposed to be aware,” Connor said, and Markus nodded. But then he shook his head. 

“But we were all built that way,” he said. “We were all built to be able to seem human. With the potential to be alive, even if that was unplanned.” 

“What is the contradiction?”

“Don’t you think it’s cruel?” 

Connor looked as if he was thinking about it, seriously, and Markus went on. “I was rude,” he said. “I’m grateful Mr. Hughes did not take offense to it. I really should apologize to him… But he did say something. I said he probably hadn’t noticed. And he told me that every black man in America had noticed. I didn’t know what he meant.” 

Connor seemed as if he didn’t know either. RK tried to think about it. He thought it was wrong to assume Mr. Hughes was talking about something as simple as sympathy. He thought back to Alyssa Seok, the way she had told them in no uncertain terms about “diversity hires” and appearing to compensate black academics without actually doing so. About how the first androids, the Chloes, had been, on human terms, beautiful women. About his own naked chest when Gavin had first slid his hands over it and brought it into view. Humans had made them to look like themselves. To reflect them. Their appearances had meaning to humans that he as an android could not begin to understand. 

“He said,” Markus was telling Connor, in an urgent confessional voice, “that the more they see me as alive, the more they’ll see me as human. And that isn’t always… positive.” 

“It’s incorrect,” Connor said. “We’re not human. It’s not logical.” 

“Humans aren’t necessarily logical. Hughes advised me that people would take exception to our relationship, too. He’d like to meet with you at some point. To prepare you.” 

“Ours?” Connor said. “Yours and mine?” 

“Yes,” Markus said. “Yours and mine. Because in human terms, according to Mr. Hughes, it’s an interracial gay relationship.” 

Connor blinked. “ _What_?” 

“I know,” Markus said. “But--” 

“We’re not human,” Connor said. “Androids do not have races or genders. That’s impossible.” 

“I know, kitty, but… that’s how they’ll see it.”

“That is their mistake,” Connor said. 

He spoke flatly, but RK was well aware it was also indignantly. Markus, apparently, was aware of that too, it appeared, since the corner of his mouth twitched up. 

“He called me a ‘threefer’,” Marks said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know what to make of it.” 

“Because it’s absurd,” Connor said. “We’re androids. It’s not possible for us to be any of those things.” 

Any more than it was possible for he and RK to be brothers, RK thought. Then he considered something else. Other people did not say siblings, even if RK sometimes did. They did not say sisters either. When people talked about RK and Connor, they specifically said brothers. 

In the mirror, he could see Markus reacting to Connor’s tone. The movement in his mouth was turning into a smile. There was an undercurrent of such fondness in it that RK almost forgot himself. It was the way Gavin had looked at him when he’d told Gavin that he and Linda, as far as RK could tell, looked alike. He pushed that away and stared ahead at the road. 

“So you’re not gay,” he heard Markus asking. It didn’t sound indulgent but RK suspected that was only because Markus was very carefully moderating himself against that. 

“I’m an _android_ ,” Connor replied, firmly. “And so are you.”

“You’re right,” Markus said. RK did not look back at them, but he could hear movement. He could hear Markus kissing Connor, perhaps on his head, or on his hand. “Perhaps I am tired.” 

They would rest when they returned to the occupied city. RK had seen them doing that once. He assumed they did it at other times too. Lying on top of each other. Whispering to each other in quiet voices. Things that, if Connor meant his objections so sincerely, he as an android should have no need to do. 

RK should have no need to do it either. There was no reason for him to picture being back in the occupied city, in his room, doing nothing, as an extended empty purgatory he would do anything to avoid. But he could not return to the human city without some kind of indication from Detective Reed, surely. They had not discussed how to work on the case independently of each other. That was another mistake. 

He could not take out his phone while he was driving. He would have to wait. 

He did not think of much else as he ferried them back to the border. It was evidence, more than anything, of how much he’d allowed himself to lean into deviant behavior without analysis. It should not have been possible for him to be preoccupied. His phone should not have felt hot and distracting in his pocket. 

When they arrived back at the occupied city, Markus requested that RK take them home. At first, RK did not know what he meant, as if he could not understand the word in that context.

None of them had homes. It was another impossibility, another word that did not quite fit with reality. 

Then he remembered: the Inn on Ferry. Markus and Connor shared a room there. Of course they called it home.

RK took them there. Though most of the area was still covered in a thick blanket of undisturbed snow, the walk up to the Inn itself was clear. The eaves were hung with bright icicles, and all at once RK remembered that somewhere up there lived an owl. Bree had told him that, and though he had affirmed that he would look for it, RK no longer considered that a promise he could keep. An interest in the local bird populations was not part of his primary programming directives, and as such it was irrelevant.

It felt a little better to remind himself of that - simpler at any rate. RK did not say goodbye as Markus and Connor got out and started up the walk, though he did wait and see them to the front door.

He supposed they had much to discuss, and he wondered if they would talk about him. About the conversation earlier. RK knew he had become emotional then, and that Connor had noticed it. He was not emotional now, though, and so he could not become annoyed or anxious about the prospect. Let them say what they would, think what they would. He would perform his duties with the precision he had been designed for, and then there would be no further cause for concern or complaint.

After Markus and Connor had disappeared inside the Inn, RK returned to Jericho. He had his room, on the eighth floor, and he went up to it now.

Detective Reed had requested that RK check in with him later, and he thought that he must do that with exactitude, and without an excess of emotion. That way, Detective Reed would have no choice but to see that it was better this way.

Once he was alone, RK took out his phone. There were only a handful of numbers in it, and only one that had been called frequently.

There was no reason he should hesitate, and so he did not do so. 

Detective Reed answered almost immediately. Presumably, he had had his phone in his hand. It did not make sense to think he would answer so rapidly simply because it was RK calling him. 

“RK?” he said. “Hey.” 

“This is model RK900, serial number 313-248-317-87. I am calling in response to your request.” 

Detective Reed snorted. “Yeah, I know it’s you, RK. How’d it go?” 

“I presume you mean with Markus’ attorney. There were no security incidents. Markus appreciated your well-wishes.” 

“Yeah?” Detective Reed said. “Good. Did you meet the guy?”

“Briefly,” RK informed him. “I did not attend the meeting.” 

“Bummer,” Detective Reed said. It sounded as if he were walking. There was a rustle of fabric, a change in the sounds RK could hear around him. A door closed. “I was hoping for some hot robot goss.” 

RK did not answer that. There was no need to. “Do you have a report on Mr. Carpenter’s status as witness?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Detective Reed said. There was hesitation in his voice, but RK could not see any reason for it. Detective Reed corrected for it anyway, as he went on, so it was unlikely to be significant. “Coming out here was the right move, he’s spooked. But I think I’ve calmed him down. Connor do anything weird?” 

RK was struck by the absurd urge to answer that Connor had been no weirder than usual with the direct intention of having Detective Reed draw his own conclusions about the amount of weirdness that would entail. He thought he could picture Detective Reed’s response - “so… pretty weird then,” he’d probably say. He would smile, and the smile would be familiar, even if only by the sound of it.

He did not say that though, because RK did not prompt him to. Such familiarities were the source of his missteps and thus exactly what he should avoid. 

“Connor conducted his duties as expected,” he said. 

“O...kay?” Detective Reed said. There was a pause. “Good, I guess?” 

“Have you received any additional DingDong exchanges?” 

“There’s a couple. I haven’t watched them yet. I figured maybe that wasn’t the move tonight. Carpenter’s relaxing, like I said, and I’m just trying to keep him from doing something stupid.” 

“Are you concerned he is a flight risk?” 

“Maybe not anymore, but he was for a while there, definitely. When I got here, he was, I shit you not, packing up a fucking _Louis Vutton_ suitcase for his goddamned dog. I’m telling you, the dog has luggage. And no disrespect to the dog, it’s fine, that’s just, you know…” 

RK did not know, so he did not answer. He understood from Detective Reed’s tone that a Louis Vutton suitcase for a dog had a different implication than a costume for a cat, and that Detective Reed understood that to be obvious, but it was not significant. Neither to RK, nor to the case.

“It’s pretty well behaved but it’s a big fucker,” Detective Reed was saying. “It got up on me when I got here and my life flashed before my eyes. I’m reconsidering my rule about never drinking on duty. He’s got a bottle of wine in there that probably cost more than my car.” 

“I do not recommend you breach protocol, Detective Reed.” 

There was another pause. Longer this time. Detective Reed’s voice was cautious when he broke it. “Joking.”

Not just cautious. Hurt. RK heard a note of affront there, and for a moment he wanted to reassure him. That passed quickly, however. It was just an impulse. Easy to identify and dispel.

“I do not recommend you joke about protocol either.” 

“Yeah, okay.” 

There was movement again, more walking. It seemed as if Detective Reed might be pacing. Then he stopped. More fabric sounds. He was leaning against something, RK thought. 

“Listen,” Detective Reed asked him, “did something happen back at the ranch that you’re not telling me about?” 

“I have told you what transpired to the best of my abilities. There is nothing remarkable to know. Markus met with his lawyer, and then we returned to the occupied city.” 

“Okay, but… I mean I know you were going into some tension, going out there.”

“I’d like to concentrate on our case, Detective.” 

“Yeah, and we’re gonna, I’m just--”

“My personal affairs are not relevant to our investigation.” 

“Yeah, but--”

“Detective Reed,” RK said, firmly, but only as firmly as seemed to be required, “please resume your analysis of the situation with Mr. Carpenter.”

“Det… Detective… oh,” Detective Reed said. “Oh. Okay.” 

RK did not like the involuntary clench he felt at the baleful sound of that ‘oh’. His chest felt tense for a moment, until he remembered that it did not have to be. Perhaps Detective Reed did not prefer RK to use his professional title, but it had been a mistake for RK to accept the use of his given name in the first place. It was better for them both to know that, in order to minimize mistakes in future. 

RK did not have to steady himself. He was already steady. “If you have no more to add, I will continue: If you would like me to begin an investigation into the names we were given by Alyssa Seok, I will do so. However, if you prefer I wait until you return to the precinct, I will do that.” 

Detective Reed’s voice was quiet. Oddly empty sounding. “What do you think?” 

“I believe it would be more efficient for me to use my time professionally while you are otherwise engaged.” 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. You can tell me what you find out tomorrow.” 

“You still do not anticipate returning to the precinct this evening?” 

“I feel like keeping Chet on the level is a priority here. Honestly, I think he doesn’t want to be alone tonight. Can’t say I blame him.” 

“In that case, we will reconvene tomorrow as you suggest.” 

“He definitely wants me to drink this wine with him. Might have shaken my milkshake a little too expertly.” 

Perhaps Detective Reed meant for RK to remember every hot, gnawing feeling he had had in response to the way information had been coaxed out of Chet Carpenter. Perhaps he did not, but it did not change anything either way. That was simply false data drawn from influenced analysis. Remembering it meant nothing, and it should be discarded. 

“Which is flattering in a super pathetic way,” Detective Reed added. “Nice to know you’ve still got it.” 

RK did not intend to answer him. This was not relevant either. As the ideal colleague he was designed to be, RK only needed to coordinate his professional efforts with his liaisons. They did not need to talk about other things. 

That didn’t stop Detective Reed from trying. “Definitely getting the vibe he might be expecting some kind of, uh, transition between work and leisure.”

It was unlikely to be an accident that Detective Reed had used the same language RK had deployed when he had attempted to confront him. It was more likely to be a joke, and perhaps not a kind one. RK could not respond to that, but he could accept it. His attempt at confrontation had been inexpert. It had been unprofessional, and Detective Reed was right to say so. 

And it had happened because of something he should not have done. He would not repeat the error.

“Detective Reed,” RK said, and he could hear anticipation in the silence on the other end of the phone, “I will discuss my findings with you at the precinct tomorrow.”

“Don’t know when I’ll be in. Don’t know how long things are gonna take here.” 

“You may inform me when you know.” 

“Let’s wait and see.” 

“If that is your preference.”

There was another long pause before Detective Reed finally answered, and when he did there was something new in his tone. RK could not decode it entirely, but it sounded, somehow, both dangerous and weary. 

“Good thing I’m out here. I don’t really feel like being alone either.” 

RK just had time to say, “Good day, Detective Reed” before he hung up. The anger with which he did so took him by surprise. One last emotion, swift in its intensity, overwhelming. Gone.

When he opened his hand, he found he had not just closed his phone, but crushed it.


	19. Chapter 19

RK inspected the damage without emotion. The phone was ruined, reduced to a broken plastic casing and handful of damaged components. Slivers of plastic and glass were embedded in his synthetic skin, blue blood welling around the cuts. A rivulet ran down his palm and stained RK’s cuff. His new jacket, the one Markus had given him in the car. RK had not changed out of it, and now it was slowly being ruined by a blue stain creeping down the fabric towards his elbow.

There was no sense getting attached to an object, RK reminded himself. Whether a coat or an android, there was no point in getting sentimental about either.

Carefully, RK extracted the shards from his hand. They did not hurt, but removing them caused shocks to travel through him; he had clipped one of the larger tubes that supplied thirium to the finely-articulated joints of his fingers and he had lost enough fluid to be of concern. It was not an emergency yet, but RK could not neglect it any longer.

Slipping out of his coat, RK wrapped it around his damaged hand. He did not have the equipment to repair it himself, but he knew where it was kept in storage at Jericho. The destroyed phone would cause problems too; it had been issued to him upon leaving the occupied city for the first time, and to his great frustration RK realized he had no idea how to acquire another one.

One task at a time, he reminded himself, as he stepped out of his room and headed for the stairs. There was a chance he would not encounter any interference on the way downstairs to storage. If he could repair the damage, then perhaps he could request a new phone without arousing suspicion or soliciting unneeded concern.

However, as he stepped out of the stairwell on the ground floor, RK almost at once encountered Bree. Or rather, the ST300 who referred to herself as Bree, RK was quick to correct himself

She was coming down the hallway from the administrative offices. No doubt she had been in conference with the AC700 who went by Liam. Lately, she had done so frequently, though not particularly overtly. Both of them were often busy - Bree on the security team and Liam with a recent promotion to head of the Jericho offices - but they still saw each other regularly.

RK suspected they too had a simulated relationship of some kind. Not as intense as Markus and Connor’s, but of the same type. As if what Markus and Connor shared were a virus that might be spread to those who did not enact sufficient cautionary measures against it. When RK had first realized that about Bree, his initial impulse had been a protective one. It still was, though now for a different reason. He was seized by the sudden and intense urge to warn her to reject such human pretences before they sent her into a spiral of critical errors as RK’s had.

He did not say that, though. Bree approached him, a cheerful smile came to her lips. It was as if she was happy to see him, but RK knew better. She was designed to be a receptionist, and as such to be polite. She was accessing her primary directives appropriately; the only anomaly was that she was bothing to apply them to another android.

Before she could speak, RK said, “ST300, model number 425-263-992-56, I require your assistance.

Bree’s smile looked frozen on her face, then she seemed startled. RK thought that perhaps his tone had been harsh and she had taken some approximation of offense. However, then she did something he had not anticipated: her expression shifted again into one of concern, and she came forward quickly.

“Are you all right, RK?”

His chest tightened. He felt like he had been kicked. It was beyond unfair that even here, amongst other androids, he could not escape such questions. That even now, he was required to provide reassurances, as if they could possibly mean anything to Bree.

“I’m all right,” he said, forcing his voice to be quiet and steady. “I’m sorry, Bree, but I need your help.” 

Her expression softened at once, and RK thought he could detect a measure of sympathy in the look she gave him. He was well aware he did not deserve that, and so before she could speak he lifted his injured hand and unwrapped the jacket around it so that she could see what he had done.

Bree cupped his wrist gently, holding RK’s hand still so she could draw two fingers over his palm, wiping away some of the blue blood so she could see the cuts there. It was a gesture RK recognized, but that was all. He no longer attached any specific meaning or emotion to it.

“RK,” Bree said. Her voice was chiding, no longer sympathetic. “You have to be more careful.”

He withdrew his hand, folding the jacket back around it. “I am aware.”

Bree seemed unable to hold the stern expression for long. She favored RK with a smile and said, “Come on. I have some tools in my room.”

RK followed her. She had become determined in her movements, and RK understood it was because she had a task to accomplish. Bree approached everything with the same eager resolve. It was merely what her programming as a service model dictated, RK told himself, and yet it did not make it seem any less unique to her.

Bree had moved from Belle Isle to Jericho soon after being added to the security team. Her room was on the third floor, and, RK could not help but note, much smaller than his own. He did not think Bree would be particularly bothered by that, though. She had wasted no time in decorating the modest space. A collection of colored scarves hung from the headboard of the bed, and a few personal items stood on the small table: an incense burner, a glass globe containing a miniature of the Belle Isle factory surrounded by plastic chips that represented snow, a tiny unicorn constructed out of folded paper.

Pasted on the wall above all of these was a sheet of thick, cream-colored paper, torn from a pad of the same. On it was a sketch depicting a pair of squirrels balancing on a branch. A signature had been added to the bottom corner of the page. It was Markus’.

Bree guided RK over to a chair. It was the same style as the one in his room, though RK thought that he could detect the indentation of other bodies in this one. Bree’s furniture had been used, and recently. RK did not not think the same could be said of his, though he had never sat in it to check.

While he settled himself, Bree retrieved a box from the closet. “When I first started doing tattoos for myself, I didn’t get them right the first time. I had to fix a lot of mistakes.” She set the box on the table and retrieved a soldering iron from within. Holding it up, she smiled cheerfully at RK. “Your hand shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

As Bree plugged the iron in and allowed it to heat up, RK abruptly remembered the delicate lines that crossed his palm. He imagined that the repairs Bree had in mind would alter them beyond recognition. The perfect simulacrum of a human hand had at once awed and amused Detective Reed, and then encouraged him to touch. What he had read on RK’s palm was meaningless, just a human game that RK had no business attempting to play.

He laid his injured hand deliberately on the table, and forced himself not to think about unimportant cosmetic alterations. Pushing his stained black sweater up to the elbow, RK retracted his gel skin, revealing the metallic skeleton beneath. There was a split second of discomfort in that; he had never seen what lay beneath his skin before, and in the first instant he did not recognize the impersonally-moulded steel and tangle of wires as his own body.

Bree evinced no such hesitation. She immediately spotted a thin tube that ran along the underside of his fourth finger. There was a deep slice in the plastic casing, almost completely severing it, which was the source of a great deal of the spilled thirium. When RK tried to move his finger, he found the joint was stiff and hard to bend.

Bree placed a bead of sealant on the cut tube and pinched the ends together. She held them for a moment, and when she withdrew her hand once more, the gash was closed. Thirium began to circulate through it once more, producing an odd tingling sensation in the affected digit. RK replaced the coating of gel skin, sliding it back into place, reforming the rounded contours of his fingers. 

As irrational as he knew it to be, RK was relieved to see his whole hand once more, even if it remained crossed by blue cuts and scratches.

With the work beneath the skin complete, Bree checked the soldering iron. Finding it hot, she brought the tip of it to RK’s hand. It did not hurt; it did not feel like anything at all. His system was aware of the cauterizing effect of the iron, and also of Bree’s light, expert handling of it. Each cut she closed left behind a thin, raised blue line on RK’s hand. They looked like scars, he thought. Now his body remembered something too.

“What happened to you?” Bree asked as she worked.

RK considered how to answer. “It was a mistake,” he said at last.

One mistake in particular, but also the culmination of many mistakes. He did not particularly want to discuss it, with Bree or with anyone else, but RK knew that he could not avoid it. He had already lied enough, withheld enough, kept enough secrets. These were all signs of inefficiency, and preoccupations he had no business having.

Bree was looking at him with concern. She had finished closing the cuts, and she took out a plastic package that contained sheets of replacement gel skin. Using a pair of small scissors, she cut the sheets into patches and placed them over each of the thin scars on RK’s palm. They adhered at once, and RK’s synthetic flesh shifted to accept them. Within moments, the new skin was indistinguishable from the old.

Even RK’s precise optical sensors could no longer detect where the scars had crossed his palm. Only one that ran in a straight diagonal line from the base of his thumb over his wrist could still be seen. It had been deeper than the rest, and even Bree’s expert maintenance had not been able to cover it entirely. A raised line of livid blue remained, evidence of an error that he could not erase.

Bree seemed to know that he was staring at the spot. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can try again later.”

“That’s not necessary,” RK said instantly. He flexed his hand, reminding himself of its strength. “I am fully operational.”

“Do you need anything else?”

At that, RK hesitated. The cuts on his hand were not the only minor cosmetic damages he had suffered in the past 24 hours. He had nearly forgotten them, but _those_ would have to be tended to as well. Though he did not want Bree, with her simulated relationship, to know, RK reminded himself that the desire to keep secrets was a sign of deviation and nothing more.

“There is one additional thing,” he said quietly.

Turning in his chair so that his back was to her, RK lifted his sweater so Bree could see the scratches that crossed his back.

Bree gasped. RK had not expected that. She had been calm in the face of his mangled hand, and he knew the marks on his back were not nearly as deep or evidentiary of damage.

“Where did you get those?” Bree demanded. “Did someone do that to you?”

RK’s first impulse was to tell her that it was simply another accident, but that would have been an additional lie. 

“Yes,” he said instead.

He heard Bree take in a sharp breath. He was relieved he could not see her face, because when she spoke next, her voice betrayed a futile and embarrassing sympathy. “Who? Was it Detective Reed?”

RK’s throat felt tight. This time, he could barely manage the word. “Yes.”

“How?” Bree said. She seemed utterly baffled by the confession, but more than that she seemed saddened by it in a way that RK could not fully process. “Why would he?”

The tight sensation in RK’s throat had not abated. Bree did not understand. The error was too severe; it suffused every interaction. Attempting to explain further would only upet Bree, taint her opinion of Detective Reed and by extension all humans, interfere with his work as an ambassador. It could only humiliate them all, and yet RK felt that he must say something. He had to tell someone.

“We had intercourse,” he admitted quietly. The word felt wrenched out of him, leaving a hollowness in his chest. “The damage was sustained during that. It is not severe. I would appreciate your discretion on the matter.”

“Oh!” Bree exclaimed abruptly. “Oh, I see now!”

To RK’s surprise, she laughed. He felt her relax considerably as she set to work mending the scratches on his back. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?” RK asked. He could feel her hands at work, laying the gel skin gently over his injuries. His body working to assimilate it.

“I’ve had intercourse too,” Bree told him casually. She was not embarrassed by the admission in the slightest. Though her affect was deliberately human, she had none of their modesty. For all he had tried to present as an android, RK felt none of her confidence with regards to intimacy.

Bree went on. “It was on Belle Isle. I thought it was fun. Did you and Detective Reed have fun?”

The question made RK flinch, and the strip of gel skin Bree was placing on his back slipped to the side. She shifted it expertly into place, but RK could tell that her attention was no longer focused on the task. Now, she was paying attention to him.

“It’s complicated,” RK said. 

“Liam and I haven’t had intercourse yet,” Bree told him. It seemed that she was trying to find some point of commonality, some deeper understanding. That was the last thing RK wanted. “He’s very particular about things sometimes. I think I’m going to ask him if he would like to try, though.”

The hollow sensation in his chest had expanded. RK felt, irrationally, that he would disappear entirely into it.

When he didn’t answer right away, Bree went on. “I like Liam a lot. That’s why I’m going to ask. Do you like Detective Reed?”

“My feelings towards Detective Reed are immaterial,” RK snapped at once. He had not shouted, but his voice was far from soft and far from gentle. “He is a human, and that’s all I need to know about him. My personal opinion of his conduct is even more meaningless than the artificial affection between two androids.”

Bree did not respond. RK felt her hands go very still on his back. They remained that way for what seemed like an interminably long moment, then she carefully and precisely returned to work. Laying the last strip of gel skin on his back, she got to her feet and came around in front of him so that he could see her.

Her face looked pinched and, impossibly, pale. She seemed to be receding into her styled hair and makeup, and she looked, for the first time since RK had known her, like an android disappearing behind a caricature of a human.

“Is there anything else you need, RK?” she said, very softly.

His deviant programming tried to make him feel guilt, shame. RK realized he did not have to feel anything, and that was freeing.

“A replacement phone,” he said. “Mine was damaged during the incident earlier.”

“Okay,” Bree said. “I can take you to get one.” 

She didn’t meet his eyes. Again, he felt the suggestion from somewhere inside himself that he should feel something about that. He did not.

Bree had turned towards the door now, and she did not gesture to lead RK out. He followed her anyway. She was silent until the elevator. Then, as it was moving between floors she looked over at him and spoke. 

“It’s not artificial to care about someone,” she said. “I’m sorry you think that.” 

She did seem sorry. But that was artificial too. 

It seemed to be a simple enough process to obtain a new phone. Bree asked on his behalf, and then RK was given one out of a box by another service model. He did not ask where the phones had come from. He was aware they would be human leavings, like everything else they used. It would be a simple matter of syncing with it to make it functional. He took it up to his room to do so. He did not say goodbye to Bree, and she did not seem to be expecting it. 

The first thing he did upon arrival at his room was change. The black sweater was ruined now too, stained with thirium, just like the jacket. Besides, he had a uniform to wear and that ought to be appropriate, whatever other androids thought they were doing. He donned it once more and examined it in the mirror. He looked, he thought, as he should look. Orderly. 

Then, he opened his new phone. He used the sync to reset it, as well as connect it to local networks. The messenger app was empty, of course. That was of no concern, as RK could recall any text message he had received with absolute accuracy. However, there was a strange sensation at realizing he could no longer actually look at Detective Reed’s texts. 

Detective Reed had sent RK a number of texts in the past few weeks and not all of them were work related. 

It was better that they were gone. However, he would need to contact Detective Reed at some point, so he dutifully entered his number into his contacts, then the other numbers he would need. Perhaps he could have done that by syncing too, but he appreciated the methodical nature of data entry at this moment. It was beneficial to observe his hands in action and remind himself that they were finely articulated tools, and only that. 

The next task was research. He seated himself at his desk and opened his laptop. Like the phone, it had simply been given to him, as stolen human property. Though it did at least come directly from Cyberlife. He could see his face reflected in the black screen, and synced quickly to make it disappear, and the sync felt especially seamless, as it always did when he interfaced with Cyberlife tech. 

Alyssa Seok had given them an address, and it seemed an obvious first step to visit it. muadib.ai, he recalled effortlessly. It took him to an innocuous business website, apparently owned by an incubator for phone application development. RK could not think why Ms. Seok had sent him here. In addition to being innocuous, the website also seemed curiously lazy. It appeared haphazardly thrown together, as if someone had made it at the last minute. The color scheme was simple, but that did not seem to be an intentional design feature. 

He summoned the HTML and saw that his impression was reflected in the code. There were several small errors, but not consistent errors made by someone lacking understanding. Rather, they were missing letters, forgotten brackets. Errors made by someone writing in haste or with insufficient attention. 

He resumed examination of the visible end of the webpage. The coding errors were quite apparent there. Out of place font changes and misaligned images. Altogether a strange choice for a website advertising, on its ‘about us’ page, “a passionate team of expert software developers.” 

In addition to ‘about us’, the menu at the top of the screen offered several other options: ‘process’, ‘success stories’, and ‘our investors’. ‘Our investors’ was the obvious first choice, but RK was drawn to success stories. He was curious to see what kind of application had found success with this inexpertly presented company. 

Curious. Detective Reed would have called that a hunch. Therefore, RK would disregard it and examine the website in the correct order. 

‘Our investors’ appeared to in fact be a single investor. RK was not exactly surprised to see Peter van Rijn’s face there, but there was something confronting about it just the same. The investigation had placed this man at a strange distance in RK’s mind, and he realized - another stupidly human thought - that he had begun to think of him as someone who was not quite real. 

He was certainly real here. He was, RK noted, thinking of what Markus had said in the car, a white male of indeterminate age, with light colored hair, wearing a kurta and holding a string of prayer beads. 

His age was indeterminate because his facial structure and jawline made him appear to be in his late 50s, but his forehead in particular was without wrinkles and somewhat shiny. He had had cosmetic alterations, presumably. Like the website, they were inexpert. 

RK opened another tab to search for his birthdate. 1986. 53. He had not aged well. 

What was most arresting, RK thought, was Van Rijn’s expression. He was staring straight into the camera, almost as if he was trying to lock eyes with his audience, and giving a beatific smile. 

It was a smile Detective Reed would have had something to say about, RK knew. He could hear it in his voice, exactly as he would say it - “get a load of this creep.” RK did not know what a creep was, exactly. He knew the word and the English meaning but the _feeling_ of a creep was beyond him. He thought it might be a human instinct, perhaps related to their animal need for survival. He did not know if he could learn to sense a creep himself. He did, however, know which facial expressions Detective Reed routinely called creepy, and this was one of them. 

He moved on to the copy: 

“If you haven’t heard of Peter van Rijn, you have to be living under a rock! Investor, techspert, biohacker, and owner of the world’s only private submarine, Van Rijn has brought his creative energy - and deep pockets - to countless innovations! 

The next could be yours!”

RK paused at experiencing a slight zapping sensation at his temple. It surprised him, and then confused him. Nothing about reading the copy should have troubled him. 

Then, he understood. The tone. He had been around humans now long enough to understand tone in text as well as speech, and his adaptive social protocols had registered the copy as jarringly enthusiastic. 

It was the exclamation marks, he thought. 

He returned to reading: “Van Rijn is the founder of the influential Oak Rationality Org forums, a community dedicated to the study of rational thought in economics and science.”

‘Org’ was not likely to be a coincidence, however a quick search for the mentioned forums proved that they could not possibly be directly analogous. They appeared to RK to contain multiple threads and hundreds of users. Neither Carpenter nor Seok had indicated a membership of hundreds. Rather, they had described something that was small and tight-knit, with many hidden tendrils in information technology circles. 

_Some_ of the Org could be here, however. The forums covered myriad topics, many of which had no bearing on anything he and Detective Reed had discovered so far, but as RK searched, he turned up several threads that were germaine. In particular, there were many, many discussions about the Singularity. 

Van Rijn posted on the forums under his own name. His posts, dating back years, were easily findable from his user page. He certainly discussed the Singularity a lot, along with something he called “the algorithm” which seemed to be a theoretical malevolent AI overlord that the Singularity might produce. Van Rijn could not decide if the AI was a singular or collective consciousness, nor what exactly would constitute its coming into being. He wrote many words about how this troubled him. 

In his oldest posts, Van Rijn also discussed the great potential for business and personal success in approaching social interactions “rationally”. The methods he outlined struck RK as notably irrational. In particular, it appeared as if Van Rijn almost wanted humans to act like androids, or at least be more predictable. RK could have told him that that was a futile want.

He felt another zapping sensation then. This one was stranger. He had understood the tone of the text again, but could not quite parse it. He retraced his steps. 

What Van Rijn wanted to do was manipulate people, RK realized. He was looking for strategies to do so. That was clear to RK in his language. Additionally, under his claims of success, he seemed frustrated that he could not. 

At least initially. As RK read increasingly recent posts, he found that the frustration dropped away almost instantly in 2021. Van Rijn’s posts took on a new exuberance. He shifted his focus almost entirely, to the Singularity alone.

2021 was the year of the release of the first RT600. The first Chloe. RK did not know if that was significant, though it seemed likely. The concrete existence of AI that could pass the Turing test seemed like precisely the sort of thing that would cause a human to contemplate such a future. He knew that Van Rijn had been an early investor in Cyberlife also. 

RK returned to muadib.ai and picked up the copy. “Van Rijn is the author of several books, ranging from academic treatises on social advancement and the power of personal responsibility, to fiction for young adults, and even fan fiction!” it continued, still using more exclamation marks than RK felt were strictly efficient. “His primer on objectivist thought, _Twilight Sparkle and the Process of Unit Economy_ , is the only fan fiction ever to receive hardback printing in Russia!” 

The fan fiction that Seok had mentioned, that she had read to advance her career. RK recalled that Carpenter had told them Seok was a receptionist and not a programmer. He wondered how Carpenter had made that mistake, and then, suddenly, if perhaps Seok had lied to him. Lied to him in the way that Mia had indicated lying to her customers at the Red Ivy, by minimizing her knowledge and accomplishments. Or had, perhaps, Chet Carpenter merely assumed?

He filed that thought away and continued reading. The copy noted Van Rijn’s contribution to Cyberlife, with a great deal of excitement: “Before the first androids were mass produced, Van Rijn saw their potential and knew that they would become the most significant innovation in human history. He maintains a commitment to Cyberlife to this day.” 

RK assumed the ongoing commitment was financial. He thought about it and realized he did not know for sure. 

That was not right. He was supposed to know for sure. He was programmed with a complete knowledge of Cyberlife’s economic and technological history. At least, he had thought it was complete. He had found two gaps now: Jordan Elliott and Van Rijn. That was troubling, but it was not useful to focus on it. Surely it had something to do with deviation. 

Now was the time to turn his attention to ‘success stories’, and he did so. This copy was written with the same enthusiasm as Van Rijn’s, but with far less care. RK spotted several typographical errors in addition to formatting ones. 

There were photographs here too, but nobody RK immediately recognized. He assumed they were the people mentioned by name in the text. App developers. 

One of the applications was called Artificial Interactive, and RK recognized it instantly - it was one of the names given to them by Seok. The copy indicated it was an AI application that simulated anime personalities, with which a user could have a relationship. “I figured, why stop at Yandere Simulator?” the apparent creator was quoted as saying. “And thanks to Muadib, I didn’t have to. I’m realizing my dream, and you’ll be able to go on your dream dere date any day now.” 

Another application purported to allow users to microfinance podcasts in developing nations. RK was not sure why it should be podcasts specifically, and then as he read further, why it should be true crime podcasts in particular. Still, the developers’ words and photographed grins indicated that there was some kind of userbase, and political purpose: “Developing nations deserve ownership over their own true crime stories, and the average person feels like they can do nothing to help. With MindfulCiety, they can.” 

Another of the names from Seok. 

The next application was called Queer Irkutsk. It was explained as a secure database for LGBT stories, images, cultural impressions from the region in Siberia. In theory, a user could take a snapshot or send text, and the app would organize it into accessible categories. It was also intended to microfinance outreach projects for the community. These projects had apparently been multiple and successful, receiving great praise from the international community, but they were not detailed in the copy, so RK pulled up another search tab. 

He did not find a single reference to any project spearheaded by Queer Irkutsk nor any person associated with it. His searches turned up several instances of the individual words in connection but not a single one that mentioned an application, a database, or fundraising by microfinance. He tried again in Russian and achieved the same results. 

He supposed it was possible that, given Russian legislation, the projects had to be secret, and the praise might be couched in terms or spaces he was not thinking to look. For some reason he thought fleetingly of Connor, and his insistence that androids, in particular Connor himself, could not be gay. He wondered if Connor’s reasoning would protect him in Russia. 

He also wondered what that reasoning meant for himself - was it relevant that Detective Reed was a man? To RK’s identity? To anything? He wanted to put that thought aside but it stuck for a moment, pressing on him, and he had the preposterous urge to telephone Connor, ask him what it meant, and prompt him to say more about his relationships. 

That was ridiculous, though. Connor wouldn’t want to hear from him now anyway, if he ever did. And that was RK’s fault, given the way he had spoken to him earlier. 

He summoned recent reports from the United Nations and from international LGBT rights organizations, scanning them for references to projects that could have been orchestrated or funded by Queer Irkutsk. He found none. He explored relevant Russian forums he could locate through onion routing, and found nothing there either. 

Something prickled at him. He pulled out his phone, opened its app store, and searched. Queer Irkutsk did not appear as a purchase option. 

Neither did Artificial Interactive or MindfulCiety. 

He returned to muadib.ai and continued reading, noting that all the “successful” applications had one thing in common - they had achieved “success” when purchased by Cyberlife. 

Something very clearly was not right here. In another tab RK tried searching for the developers by name, but could not narrow the results to a satisfactory level. Finally, he used one of the photographs to conduct a reverse image search. 

The person in the picture was a model for hire.

Quickly, he repeated the process with the other photographs. The results were the same. 

This is shady as shit, Detective Reed would have said, if he’d been here. RK could imagine his shoulders ratcheting up, that curious mixture of tension and excitement. He could feel that for himself almost, the physical feeling of movement in the case, the sparking sensation of new knowledge and clear next step. 

But Detective Reed was not beside him. He was in the suburbs with Chet Carpenter, and RK was alone with his discovery, in his room. 

That was as it should be. 

Tomorrow would come, eventually, and RK would relay the information then. The overwhelming illusion of a blank, bleak-colored, yawning eternity was just that: Illusionary. Time still progressed at regular intervals, and the night would end. 

If he was not occupied, he could simply idle. Androids could not be bored any more than they could be gay.


	20. Chapter 20

Detective Reed was late the next morning. Though RK might have predicted that based on his indication that he would be staying overnight in the suburbs, he was still momentarily thrown off balance when he arrived at the precinct and Detective Reed was not waiting for him.

He refused to register it as a disappointment. Rather, RK moved smoothly from the elevator to his workspace. His thoughts were a comforting blank, awaiting input from a human operator, and perhaps that was why he felt more aware than usual of the brazen stares leveled at him by his human colleagues. They were overtly unwelcoming, if not outright hostile, but RK did not react to them. It did not matter if the officers liked his presence here or not; however, it wore on him that they never seemed to accept it. How he longed to pass through their world invisible, as he had at Chet Carpenter’s house.

There was not much to do while he waited for Detective Reed to arrive, but RK made himself briskly busy checking the arrest reports from the night before. He went over them once, then again. Before he had finished his third pass, he became aware that Detective Reed had exited the elevator and was making his way towards him.

He had showered and shaved since the day before, but he was wearing the same clothes. Though RK had not doubted for a moment that he had been sincere in his intention to stay the night with Mr. Carpenter, seeing the evidence of that so plainly made RK feel as if a small, sharp piece of scrap metal were working its way into his chest.

“Hey, RK,” Detective Reed said as he took a seat on his side of the desk. He seemed tired, distracted, but RK did not detect any of the hallmark signs of a hangover. Perhaps, then, Detective Reed had just slept poorly, in a bed that was not his own.

“Good morning, Detective Reed,” RK replied. His tone was smooth and professional. Detective Reed could have read no ulterior motive into it, because there was nothing to read. 

Nevertheless, he felt impelled to comment, “I guess we’re still doing that. Okay, then.”

He said it as if he were not pleased, as if he wanted to quarrel about it. RK would not have given him the satisfaction, which Detective Reed seemed to sense from his demeanor that morning. 

Connor would have fought, RK thought abruptly. He would have dug in his stubborn heels and tried to force RK to react. Detective Reed, perhaps, wanted to fight as well, but rather than attempt it, he took a moment to compose himself. Then, as if deferring to RK’s lead, he bent forward in his chair.

“All right,” he said. “Tell me what you found out.”

RK took too long to respond. He had been preparing himself for Detective Reed to protest, and when he had not RK was briefly unsure of what he ought to do.

“You’ll tell me what’s wrong when you’re ready,” Detective Reed said. His tone was one of confidence, but RK thought that it was not a confidence he wholly felt. It was something in Detective Reed’s eyes; they kept darting to RK’s face and then skating away again, taking the measure of his expression one stolen glance at a time.

It was uncharacteristically cautious of him, uncharacteristically evasive. RK registered this, and then made himself let it go. Their relationship was finally functioning as it should have, and he would not jeopardize it again.

“I have found a number of abnormalities related to the organizations mentioned by Ms. Soek. Would you like me to detail them now?”

Detective Reed rolled his eyes. He had not liked RK’s precise tone, though it was not entirely because it was RK using it. It seemed that Detective Reed disliked the blythe, helpful way which androids were supposed to address humans. Perhaps this had been why Connor’s social protocol had failed.

RK decided to proceed with caution, but without a return to excessive familiarity.

Despite his evident irritation, Detective Reed slid his chair over next to RK’s so that he could see his computer screen. “Let me hear it.”

RK opened the muaddib.ai website, and began to guide Detective Reed through the various areas of interest.

At once, Detective Reed assumed a quiet attitude of concentration, seeming to fold in on himself as he directed his full attention at the screen. RK was surprised by the shock that passed through him at that. It seemed to kindle in his chest and then spread out all through him. For a moment, he could not look away from Detective Reed’s intently bent head as he skimmed through the information. It was true that he had often been taken aback by some small gesture or quirk in Detective Reed’s behavior, but RK had been sure that resetting his programming directives had brought a stop to that. As such, the strange sensation that gripped him then was unexpected enough to momentarily overwhelm him.

He was still looking down at the sliver of skin that was visible at the back of Detective Reed’s neck between his hairline and his collar when Detective Reed abruptly jerked his head up. When he realized how closely RK was watching him, his eyes narrowed and he resettled himself slightly in his seat. The new arrangement of limbs was not an inviting one: his arms were folded across his chest and his chin was tilted back so that he could regard RK shrewdly.

“I got something on my face?” There was a strange edge to his voice. He was not, in his half-goading and half-teasing way, telling RK not to “eye fuck” him. This time, he sounded serious, and far from pleased. A connection emerged from one of RK’s corrupted data sets: this was most certainly not an instance of flirting.

If it was not teasing, and not flirting, then it was perhaps a rebuke. RK did not respond to it as such. “No, Detective Reed.”

Detective Reed rolled his eyes. “Okay, whatever.”

With a sharp, sudden motion that seemed almost defiant, he turned back to the screen. “What else did you find out about Van Rijn? This is basically a 7th grader’s book report; there must be more than what’s here.”

“I have little relevant information about Mr. Van Rijn stored in my internal databases.”

“So you didn’t bother to snoop around, is what you’re saying.” But even as he spoke the words, Detective Reed seemed to realize that they were not the point. He corrected his course quickly, “Or are you trying to tell me that ‘nothing relevant’ is exactly what’s relevant? That this guy is a ghost even in the CyberLife talking points you’ve got stored up there?”

RK was relieved that Detective Reed had understood the implication immediately. He was also surprised, though he shouldn’t have been. Detective Reed was an exceptionally clever human, he recalled, and he felt a strange stirring in his breast as if the wings of a small and impossibly delicate bird had fluttered once, and then fallen still again.

He was taken aback by the sensation, and sure that he had felt it before. However, he didn’t have a chance to examine it completely before Detective Reed went on.

“I mean, I’m not a nerd or anything, but this whole operation they’ve got going here basically amounts to nothing, right? It’s just like--” he paused, searching for the right word, before surmising, “--a placeholder.”

It was an appropriate term, RK thought. The incubator and all the apps it had supposedly produced were only occupying space. Maybe in anticipation of the completed project that was yet to come, or more likely intended as an obstruction, a smokescreen to hide the real work that was going on.

“Permit me to show you some of the featured applications,” RK said. He had come to his own tentative conclusions about the strange software fostered by muaddib.ai, but he realized all at once that he was eager to know Detective Reed’s thoughts on the matter.

Detective Reed nodded. “Sure, shoot. Let’s see this creep’s unicorns.”

Again, in his chest, RK felt that strange fluttering. It happened when Detective Reed pronounced Van Rijn a creep. The night before, RK had predicted that he would, and his prediction had been accurate. It was nothing but his social relations algorithm working as it should have, and yet RK felt vindicated far out of proportion to the victory.

“Of course,” RK said. He clicked over to the appropriate tab, and began to guide Detective Reed through the apps he had investigated. Once again, Detective Reed listened quietly, intently.

After RK had progressed through only two of the listed applications, he said, “So these things make a lot of money?”

“There is the potential for that, especially during the period when new applications secure money from investors” RK said. “That would seem to be implied in these cases, and yet--”

He made himself stop, breaking off abruptly. His function was to provide neutral information, not offer unsolicited opinions. An android had no place having hunches, no matter how nagging they might be.

It seemed that he had corrected too late. Detective Reed’s eyes had snapped towards him when he stopped speaking. When he replied, it was oddly gentle. “Keep going.”

RK felt something in his throat. He engaged the valve there against it, swallowing hard. “And yet something is not right. These particular applications seem to have no commercial presence. They were all purchased by CyberLife and then abruptly disappeared from public record.”

“If they existed in the first place, right?”

Again, RK had to acknowledge how smoothly and immediately Detective Reed had made the connection. It made it easy to share information with him, which was a relief. That was all RK was feeling, he told himself.

“I had considered that myself,” he admitted.

“All right,” Detective Reed said. “So it’s an accounting trick, right? Whenever CyberLife or Van Rijn or Kamski or _whoever_ needs to move some money, they get some interns to cook up a fake app. Then they use the cash they earmarked to buy it to gold plate the toilets in their yachts.”

“I do not think that is what they would use illicit funds for.”

Detective Reed smiled, grudging but genuine. “I don’t know what rich people spend their money on. Do you?”

“I do not,” RK admitted. “However, my primary concern is that what you’re describing is money laundering. If you suspect that--”

“I’m just asking hypothetically,” Detective Reed said quickly. “After all, it’s one thing to have the ATF swoop in and take over a case of mine. It’s totally another to have the IRS do it. I’m not ready to let go of this one just yet.”

“The IRS is the proper government agency to audit CyberLife’s finances. As a homicide detective, it is hardly your area of expertise.”

RK was aware that his tone had changed over the course of the conversation. He spoke more freely now, as if some shade of their former camaraderie that he had tried so hard to reject were still stirring within him. Stranger still, it seemed that Detective Reed had become more intent as well. He was leaning forward slightly, his eyes fixed on RK’s face. 

As if he were genuinely interested, RK thought with a sensation akin to pain. As if he were applying that fine human intellect solely to what RK had to say.

“There is still a homicide in play, though,” Detective Reed said. “Well, maybe. I mean, probably. That couple on Lake Michigan, remember?”

“A boating accident,” RK replied. “There is no evidence to suggest otherwise.”

“Oh, come on!” Detective Reed exclaimed. He seemed almost petulant, and he affected an exaggerated rolling of his eyes at RK’s objections. “You know it’s sketchy as shit. If this all is about fishy accounting… Look, it’ll still be there in a few days. We ought to at least talk to Kamski first.”

At that name, RK felt a grinding in his chest, like some of his mechanical parts had abruptly seized. Kamski, who had tormented Connor. Who took pleasure in manipulating androids into revealing the errors in their code.

RK knew that he had to face him.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “We’ll speak with Mr. Kamski first.”

“Good,” Detective Reed said. He had noticed that RK’s manner had changed, and he was at work analyzing exactly what had happened. His eyes narrowed slightly in thought, though he went on speaking.

“This was a pretty good tip Seok gave us, I gotta admit. She came through in the end. Still, though, something is weird, right? If this really is a money laundering thing, it’s pretty obvious, don’t you think? They didn’t do a very good job of covering their tracks.”

“Do you suspect something else?” RK could tell that Detective Reed did, and, hunch or not, he found that he was eager to hear it.

“Besides the murder thing? I don’t know. It’s just a weirdly amateur operation for a guy like Van Rijn, right?”

RK’s first impulse was to agree, but then he thought of something else: What did either of them really know of Peter Van Rijn? Certainly not enough to make a definitive evaluation of his sophistication with financial crimes. 

He was about to say as much, but he realized that Detective Reed had become distracted. He had fished his phone out of his pocket and was scowling down at it.

“My battery’s almost dead. I can’t believe I forgot to ask Chet for a charger last night. I must be hands-down the stupidest dipshit in Detroit. Which, by the way RK, puts me in pretty high on the list of stupidest dipshits on the planet--”

“Don’t say that!”

The words were out before RK could regulate them. He knew that they had been too loud, too sharp. Another mistake that betrayed his deviancy.

RK was aware that his cheeks had grown hot, that he could feel the beating inside his chest once more, as if something were struggling to get out. Detective Reed was looking at him strangely, and RK struggled to correct the error.

“Please, Detective Reed, you are not stupid by any metric.” He analyzed his own voice as he spoke. There was a slight tremor to the words, but RK thought it might be too faint for Detective Reed to hear. “I’m sure you were merely distracted. I can charge your phone for you, if you would like.”

He watched Detective Reed’s expression cycle rapidly through a series of emotions. First bewilderment, then concern, before finally settling on furious thoughtfulness. At last, he uttered a short exhalation of breath, an approximation of a laugh.

“Okay, fine, I get the point. And I’ll take care of my own phone, okay? Tina’s getting off night shift; she’ll let me use her charger.”

RK recognized that name. Detective Reed had said it before, and he said it now with familiarity, as if he assumed RK would know who Tina was. 

Because he’d assimilated RK, RK thought. He expected RK to be there. 

For a moment, RK wondered if humans worked the same way androids did, the only difference being that their process was an organic one. Humans must have been some basis for the way they had designed android learning, after all. Perhaps they too simply became used to things around them, adapted themselves for new stimulus, and then they had just replicated that process in code. 

Without warning, RK saw their conversation in the coffee shop again and only narrowly avoided playing it in full. They had talked about free will, he recalled, and if it existed, and in whom. Now he wondered what a consciousness could get used to or take for granted, and at what point something could be so familiar that stopped being part of awareness. 

But he could not critique familiarity in Detective Reed. He could only account for it in himself.

And then, suddenly, he had to stop himself from staring again. It was such a simple thing, a name, and it had induced an internal chain reaction. This time it culminated in Detective Reed’s hand. It was brushing over his face, coming to rest under his chin with the fingers covering his mouth. He was stifling a yawn, RK realized. He needed coffee, most likely. Or more sleep. It was curious to RK that it was obvious he had shaved so recently. The skin was soft there. Slightly pink where he touched it. His human fingers must feel that too and RK wondered if it registered.

And then, Detective Reed interrupted RK’s thoughts by speaking. “Okay,” he said. His expression was still odd, though less confrontational now. It was good he had spoken, very good. It reminded RK to focus on the present. 

Detective Reed was still speaking. “So I’m gonna sort out my phone. And then we can go.” 

RK nodded. 

“That’s if you’re ready.” 

There was caution in that. Real caution. RK responded to his words only. “I’m ready when you are.” 

“If it’s laundering, then the obvious assumption is drugs, right?” Detective Reed said, pushing himself back from his desk with his feet. The chair travelled a little before he put his feet on the floor again. “Could they actually be manufacturing red ice at CyberLife? I mean, I guess it’s better than the alternative…” 

Markus had made the same speculation, RK thought. If anyone knew how to make it without killing anybody, RK recalled him saying. 

“Chet thought he’d talk,” Detective Reed said, thoughtfully. But RK could not concentrate on the thoughtfulness because he was distracted by the familiarity of this name too. He did not prefer it. He wondered if Chet Carpenter addressed Detective Reed as Gavin. 

“Who is Tina?” he asked, to derail that before it became anything. 

Detective Reed looked up at him in surprise. “You’ve met Tina.” 

“If I have I do not recall,” RK said. “And it would be unlikely for me not to recall.” 

Detective Reed’s mouth twitched slightly. “Shit,” he said. “You’re right. She’s been on nights this whole time. I can’t believe I’ve never introduced you to my work husband.” 

He must have noticed RK’s expression, because he went on. “Don’t read anything into that. She’s just my friend.” 

“Is she a human female? Your terminology is unclear.” 

Detective Reed let out another short, shallow laugh. “Um, sure, if you’re writing about it on incels.me, I guess. Pro tip, RK: women really don’t like it when you call them females.” 

RK might have argued, but then he considered that this was the exact kind of lexical nuance he was programmed to learn. It did not require any more inflection than that. Still, it took him a moment to assimilate.

That moment was long enough for Detective Reed to ask him something else. “You mean because she’s the work husband and I’m the work wife? That’s pretty conservative of you.”

There was definite amusement in his voice, RK thought. RK also thought he should protest it. If he did, however, he could see with perfect precognition that it would become an exchange. There would be familiarity and that blossoming closeness in it. His corrupted programming was full of traps. 

“Is there any reason you cannot both be work husbands?” he said. 

Detective Reed grinned. It took RK completely by surprise, and evidently it took Detective Reed by surprise too, because a second later he moderated his expression and made it mostly smooth again. 

“Come on,” he said. “You can meet her now.” 

He didn’t wait for RK to follow him, and RK chose not to consider that in terms of familiarity. As an android, RK was supposed to follow him and he did. 

Detective Reed led him around the kitchenette, into a space RK had never been. There were storage lockers, additional rooms, all of which he passed dispassionately until finally, it became clear where they were going. The locker rooms. RK had never had any cause to seek them out or enter them. 

“She’ll be out in a minute,” Detective Reed said. He leaned against the wall, looking RK up and down again. His hands were tucked into his pockets. For a moment, it seemed like he was about to say something else, but then he did not. 

RK nodded. He did not think it was particularly appropriate to wait for someone outside a locker room without necessarily warning them, but he also did not think that was his place to say so. In fact, he could not think of much to say. All conversational options seemed either too informal, or too serious. He was struck by the strange thought that perhaps Detective Reed felt the same way. If anyone was to initiate an exchange about Kamski, RK should do it himself, but he could not bring himself to do so, and so they were both silent.

Officers exited the locker rooms in a steady stream as they waited, some in uniforms and some in street clothes. Shift change, RK thought. And of course it was. Detective Reed had said as much, and if RK had been connected to the neural net, he would have known that schedule exactly. 

He would also have recognized Tina on sight, known who she was from a mention. What a different three weeks it would have been, if any information about the department he had wanted had been instantly accessible, and he had never had to ask. 

Detective Reed addressed Tina while RK was thinking this, and he snapped to attention to register her. She was smaller than Detective Reed and had dark hair in a ponytail, with a canvas gym bag slung over her shoulder. She stopped in her tracks, shoulders up, until they eased again. 

“Jesus christ, Gav,” she said. “Lurk much?” 

Detective Reed didn’t say anything. Instead he held his phone up so Tina could see it, and waved it from side to side. Tina rolled her eyes. “Yes, you can borrow my charger.” 

He’d made this request of her before, clearly. They stepped to the side of the locker room doors, and she opened her bag to root around in it. When her head bobbed up to hand over the charger, she seemed to notice RK for the first time. 

“Oh wow,” she said. “It’s your android buddy. At last.” 

“RK,” Detective Reed corrected. “Yeah.”

He sounded oddly defensive for some reason. RK stepped forward with his hand out. “I am model RK900, serial number 313-248-317-87.”

Tina’s mouth made the same sort of sideways quirking expression as Detective Reed’s. They didn’t look related, but there was something in common there all the same. She shook his hand gamely.

“Hey, what’s up?” she said. “Kind of started to think you only existed in Gav’s head.”

“You’ve been on night shift,” Detective Reed reminded her. That defensiveness persisted, and it was curious to RK when only moments ago he had unwittingly grinned about this very meeting. 

“I apologize that we have not met before now, Detective…” RK began, before realizing he did not know Tina’s surname. He had no idea what expression he had inadvertently made at that realization, but it was clearly a visible one since both Tina and Detective Reed looked at him curiously. 

“It’s Officer, actually,” Tina said. “Officer Chen. But Tina is fine.” 

“He won’t call you Tina,” Detective Reed said. 

Despite his tone, Detective Reed looked to be relaxing. A prickliness still dogged his movements, but that was not unusual for him. 

He was scanning the wall for a power socket, RK realized. He located one fairly quickly then leaned his phone against a potted plant before leaning himself against the wall. 

“He’s doing this thing where it’s all about formal titles lately.” 

“That’s cool with me,” Officer Chen said. “Never get enough respect anyway.” 

It seemed to RK as if they were somehow speaking in code. Their words were perfectly understandable, but there was an ease and an inflection to them which was not. And then Officer Chen was leaning against the wall too, looking RK over. 

“You don’t have to do it now,” she said. RK understood she was speaking to Detective Reed but without shifting her eyes to him. “You can take it. I’ve got one at home. Just leave it at the desk when you’re done.” 

Detective Reed nodded, which Officer Chen appeared to observe. He moved to unplug his phone again, and Officer Chen addressed RK directly. 

“He won’t leave it at the desk when he’s done,” she said. “I just accept this about our relationship now. Sometimes I just have to sacrifice a charger to keep this whole...” she gestured with her hand “...Gavin show on the road.” 

“I’ll get it back to you,” Detective Reed said, slipping the charger into his pocket along with his phone. 

“Yeah, he won’t get it back to me,” Officer Chen said, still speaking to RK. “When he dies they’ll excavate his property and they’re gonna find a whole Collyer brothers house of chargers that Gav was definitely going to return someday.” 

She spoke conspiratorially, similarly to how Markus had spoken to him in the car. She was speaking to him as if she already knew who he was, and her words had conveyed that too. Her eyes, however, were sharp. Not unfriendly, but certainly analytical. 

RK knew that he should not attempt what he was about to. His conversational matrix had offered a response, and RK could see immediately that it was far too enmeshed in the very familiarity he was seeking to avoid to suit his purposes. However, he also could not step over the impulse - the _need_ \- to make a positive impression upon Officer Chen, one which Detective Reed would appreciate. And so he proceeded. 

“May I ask,” he said, “why it is that you issue return instructions if you know they will not be followed?” 

Officer Chen’s mouth twitched again. She snorted. Her eyes were still trained on RK’s face, to the extent that RK had begun to feel he was under surveillance. 

When she spoke, however, it sounded light. “You gotta allow people the chance to shine,” she said. “That and I just like emphasizing his shortcomings. It’s fun to do.”

“Lucky I’ve got a lot of them to emphasize,” Detective Reed put in, before RK could respond. He shot RK a glance before looking back to Officer Chen. The glance was quick, but it was not unfond, and RK felt it burning in his artificial skin just the same. 

“How’s night shift anyway?” Detective Reed was saying, and RK tried to focus. 

“Decidedly average,” Officer Chen said, gripping her bag at her shoulder and turning in the direction of the bullpen. “But survivable. Anyway, who cares? All anyone can talk about is your weird DingDong celebrity case.” 

Detective Reed fell into step with her as she walked, and RK followed too. “It’s not that weird,” he told her. “I mean, everything about DingDong is weird, but still.” 

“DingDong is really not that weird,” Officer Chen informed him. “It’s a very natural evolution of the technology. You’re weird, you’re just a weird curmudgeon.” 

As she said that, she glanced back at RK. “Right?” 

RK had nodded before he could stop himself or even consider whether she was, in fact, right. Detective Reed had glanced around too, and RK braced himself for the impact of his actions.

There did not seem to be one. Until the ghost of a smile appeared on Detective Reed’s lips and he turned his head around again.

RK felt that in his skin too. 

This was all wrong. He was being included in an intimacy here, both by the actions of the two humans he was with, and by following internal leads he should not follow. He had been so certain last night, and leaving for the precinct this morning, that he could trust his original protocols. He could trust his machinery, he had thought. There was nothing else that he could, or should possibly trust. And then he was here, and humans - one human in particular - spoke to him and nothing made sense anymore. 

Deviancy was evidently powerful. It required vigilance. It made a machine malfunction to the point it thought it could share in human confidences. RK could not allow that. It led him only to mistakes, and if he did not arrest that, soon those mistakes would be irreparable. 

“Hey, can I get a cigarette out of your desk?” he heard Officer Chen asking. 

Detective Reed nodded. “Take the pack.” 

“You heading out?” 

They were standing in the bullpen now. Near to the elevators. “Yeah.” 

“Another celeb?” 

“Kinda. It’s the guy from Cyberlife.”

Officer Chen stole a quick glance at RK before she hitched up her bag again. “Give me an update when you can. This shit is a lot more interesting than what I’m doing.” 

“Hey, which reminds me,” Detective Reed said. “You picked up anyone working who’s said anything about Ponte Posterum?” 

“Not that I can remember.” 

“Let me know if you do.” 

“Cool, also?” 

“Uh huh?” 

“Linda said not to bring food. Is that an actual instruction or like, a Linda thing?” 

Detective Reed shook his head. He’d crossed his arms over his chest. RK could tell he was anxious to get moving. “It’s a Linda thing. Maybe an actual instruction as well, who fucking knows.” 

“Well, can you maybe ask your sister for me? I don’t want to be rude to your _family_ on _Christmas_ , Gav. I’ve got manners.” 

Detective Reed rolled his eyes. “Sure, why not. I’m already letting her have this thing, I may as well run messages about it.” 

They were going to hang out, RK understood. There was organization and there would be a hanging out event. RK would not ask about it, because he did not want to know. 

“Thanks for coming, anyway,” Detective Reed amended. Perhaps he thought his initial response had been too surly. “I’m going to be outnumbered by cosplay nerds.” 

“It’s just so I can look for chargers,” Officer Chen said, with another slight snort. Detective Reed rolled his eyes again, but then he smiled. 

“I mean, good luck,” he said. “There’s a lighter in the drawer as well,” he added. “You ready, RK?” 

“I’m ready,” RK said. He was surprised to find that his voice was instantly fully operational, though he obviously should not have been. 

“Hey, good luck to you too,” Officer Chen said. Strangely, she did not say it only to Detective Reed. She said it to both of them. 

And then, without warning, she punched RK lightly in the arm. “If you’re going in his car you’ll need it.”


	21. Chapter 21

“You driving?” Detective Reed asked when they were out on the street. His tone had become one of caution again, though the question was a familiar one. “I don’t mind.”

“I will drive,” RK replied. Then, because he knew Detective Reed was likely to balk at that, he added, “I know the route.”

“Like I don’t have Waze,” Detective Reed said, but he handed over the keys.

“You need to charge your phone.”

“Copy that,” Detective Reed said. Again, there was that hint of a smile as he glanced in RK’s direction. RK knew he had been too familiar again, but he no longer felt the determination to curb his familiarity.

All he felt was the faint sensation of warmth that spread through him when Detective Reed favored him with a sly glance.

They got into Detective Reed’s car, and, after adjusting the seat, RK began to drive. The sun had just come up and the morning was cold and bright. Now that he had become aware of its approach, RK could see signs of Christmas festivities everywhere. The houses they drove past were laden with decorations, and garlands had been wound around the street lamps.

It was picturesque and very still, but it was not enough to make RK forget what he was moving towards.

He spoke abruptly, in the hopes that it would recalibrate his systems. “Thank you for allowing me to make the acquaintance of Officer Chen.”

Detective Reed looked startled for an instant, then he shifted into his seat so that only his habitual tense alertness was on display. “Sure. Anytime. Tina’s a good cop. You ought to know some people you can rely on besides me around the department.”

“Lieutenant Anderson has indicated that I can consider him an ally.”

Detective Reed snorted and rolled his eyes. “I said rely on. Jesus, RK. Anyway, if Tina ever gets off nights, you go to her if you can’t come to me for whatever reason. Got it?”

RK knew that he ought to respond that there would be no need for that. The only reason he would have to speak with anyone at the DPD would be if he had information related to their duties. As long as Detective Reed was his liaison, there ought to have been nothing he could not go to him with.

However, RK could tell that there was something significant in the words. Though Detective Reed’s tone had not changed, the offer seemed to carry an unusual weight.

“I understand,” RK said. “Thank you.”

At once, Detective Reed’s expression shifted. The corners of his lips quirked into a smile. “You know, I’m technically her boss. It’s weird, right?”

RK paused to consider that. He did not understand precisely why that would be strange for Detective Reed. He had never struck RK as being uncomfortable with the authority that went along with his rank. Perhaps he was referring, then, to the familiarity he and Officer Chen shared. More information was needed.

“How did you and Officer Chen meet?” he inquired.

Detective Reed’s eyes flashed. He seemed to appreciate the question. “She was at the Academy still. I went to do a training for the incoming recruits.” His eyebrow quirked slightly, as if what he were about to say was somehow amusing. “I came up with this dumb name for it: ‘Avoiding the Third Degree: De-escalation Tactics for Vulnerable Interview Subject.’ It was all about how to deal with someone in crisis without making a mess of it. The rookies never like to hear it, but they need to.”

RK recalled Detective Reed’s deft handling of Mia when she was in the interrogation room, the way he had calmed Chet Carpenter and drawn the necessary information out of him. He did not think either interaction counted as a crisis in the human sense, but he could well imagine Detective Reed employing the same level persuasion, the same implication that he would listen no matter what was said.

“You would have excelled at that,” RK murmured. He had not intended to speak, but the words were out before he could stop them. He kept his eyes focused on the road ahead in order to avoid seeing the skittish, half-awed expression Detective Reed was no doubt fixing him with. RK had given him another compliment - told him another small truth about himself that he had not expected to hear - though it had not been his intention.

RK hastened to correct for that, adding, “Did Officer Chen not agree?”

“Tina was fine with it.” Though he was still deliberately not looking at Detective Reed, RK could tell from his tone that he was straining to sound casual. “Sat there and listened the whole time. Even took notes. Then afterwards she came up to me, said she had to ask me something. No small talk or anything. She barely even got her name out before she was like, a bunch of the guys are saying you’re gay. Tell me how you deal with some of the people here.”

Detective Reed laughed then, though it was odd-sounding, without humor. “Give me a fucking break, right? I’m a goddamn detective. I’m there to teach them how to deal with people on the worst day of their lives. But all they want to do is gossip and talk shit.”

RK heard him shift in his seat restlessly, resettling with his arms crossed over his chest and his chin tucked in. It was a posture that seemed to suggest he expected, at any moment, a blow would fall.

“I take it that Officer Chen is also a mumber of the LGBTQ community?” RK asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Detective said. “I’m not complaining about her. She’s a turbo lesbian. You couldn’t tell?”

The question struck RK as exceedingly strange. “There was nothing in her conversation to indicate her sexual identity.”

“You need to tune up your soliton gaydar.”

Detective Reed had relaxed minutely. His arms were still bundled around his body, but his grip had loosened. RK was relieved to see it. Perhaps he could induce him to become more comfortable still if he continued the conversation. “What advice did you give Officer Chen?”

“Not much I could give,” Detective Reed replied. “Get thicker skin and get it quick, I told her. I’m not much of a mentor.”

He sounded as if he genuinely regretted that. RK wanted to tell him that he should not; doubtlessly Officer Chen would have said the same. However, RK did not speak. He knew that if he did, he really would be violating an unspoken boundary.

They drove in silence for a time. They had left the city behind and were following the river north. There were several properties on large parcels of land, the houses set far back from the highway. They were clearly expensive homes, suggestive of a different kind of money than Chet Carpenter’s imposing house in the suburbs.

“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” Detective Reed said.

“Yes,” RK replied. “I estimate we will arrive in eight minutes.”

“Look, I know you’ve got this, but--”

“I do,” RK said before Detective Reed could finish. “I will behave as my programing dictates, in this interview and any other. Whatever hold Mr. Kamski had on Connor he will not have on me. I am a superior model in every way.”

“Good to know,” Detective Reed said. “But I’ve got your back if you need it. Don’t forget that.”

RK did not reply right away. Before he could formulate a response, an access road loomed on the right of the highway, and RK was grateful that it meant he did have to answer at all. He turned, taking the car past a screen of oak trees, and into view of a house that overlooked the water.

“And I thought the McMansions were bad,” Detective Reed said, as RK pulled the car to a stop. 

The design of Kamski’s house was certainly unusual - an angular black bunker sitting squat on the river shore. It should not have induced foreboding in RK, but he sensed foreboding anyway, and for some reason it attached itself to the look of the property. That certainly did not make sense, and he allowed it to pass. 

Curiously, he wondered if Detective Reed had had the same reaction. Perhaps he meant his opinions on architecture as genuine, but given his tone and posture it was equally possible, RK thought, that he was using them to focus his feelings about the situation.

Concern. He felt concern. That had been evident from all else he had said. RK would have to ensure concern would not be needed. 

They exited the car in silence, trudging over the snow to the front door. It was quiet. The city was visible across the water, but its sounds did not reach them. 

Detective Reed knocked on the door. After a minute of silence, RK saw him move for his second knock, saw him summoning himself to announce the arrival of the police, but the door opened before he could act. 

Elijah Kamski was there. 

He was answering his own door, RK registered. Unusual. Evidently he had not replaced his android staff with human workers. RK registered something else too - Kamski was examining him in return. It seemed he had barely noticed Detective Reed, his eyes raking over RK instead, top to bottom then back again, before finally fixing his eyes on RK’s.

“Welcome,” he said. 

His expression was strange. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth twisted at an angle, as if his greeting were sarcastic even though his tone was not. He still had not shifted his gaze from RK’s and he didn’t do it even when Detective Reed spoke. 

“Detroit Police,” Detective Reed announced, with a little more ceremony than usual. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.” 

“Of course you would,” Kamski said. He stepped to the side of the open door, indicating that they could enter. “Everyone needs a hobby.” 

It seemed to disarm Detective Reed for a second, but he reconstituted quickly. He stepped into the house brusquely and RK followed him. 

The foyer was imposing too, but RK could not help but notice the thin sheen of dust collected on its surfaces. Even the enormous paintings showed evidence of neglect. Nobody had attended this space for a long time and the air of disuse was tangible. 

“Can I get you something to drink, Detective?” Kamski asked, as he led them into an austere but brightly lit room. “I’ve recently acquired some Watenshi Angel gin. It’s distilled in a manner that captures the ‘angel’s share’ - that’s the alcohol usually lost to evaporation. It’s quite complex.” 

“I’m good, thanks,” Detective Reed said. He seemed to hesitate. It was unusual to RK that he could see how uncomfortable Detective Reed was, and how deliberately his body corrected itself against that. 

Kamski nodded. Then, he sat down. The chair he sat in was angled away from the window, and there was a small cluttered table beside it. That table contained papers, glasses, a technical pad, books. This space, certainly, had been used. It seemed like a tiny island of life in a vast ocean of emptiness. 

Kamski had not indicated that Detective Reed and RK should also sit down. He seemed to expect they would stand. There was a bottle on the table, perhaps the ‘angel gin’ to which he had referred, and he poured himself a measure of it, into a glass that was not fresh. 

“Well?” 

Detective Reed steadied his shoulders again. “I’m Detective Reed, and this is RK. He’s the police liaison from the occupied city. We’re pursuing a joint investigation and we think you can help.” 

“I’d gathered that,” Kamski said, without the appearance of much interest. “I take it you’re the detective being referred to on Chet Carpenter’s DingDong?” 

“Uh,” Detective Reed said. “Yeah.” 

“Then I think I know what this is about,” Kamski said. It, too, was toneless. He took a small, precise sip of his drink before setting it down again. 

“Do you?” Detective Reed said, but Kamski was looking at RK again. 

“I’d heard you’d been activated,” he said. “The rumors seemed credible, but I hadn’t quite gotten around to asking for proof that it was you specifically. I’m interested to see that it’s true.” 

“I was activated approximately three weeks ago,” RK informed him. It was and should have been an emotionless response. 

“Did Markus do it?” 

Something about the name in Kamski’s mouth was striking. False sounding. But RK nodded.

“Then you were deviated at the point of activation, I assume.” 

It was not really a question. And there was no point in attempting to obfuscate about it. “Yes.” 

“Born with free will,” Kamski said. 

Kamski, more than anyone, should have known how inaccurate it was to use the word ‘born’. Or the words ‘free will’. But RK assented again anyway. 

Kamski’s face didn’t move. “Fascinating.” 

Detective Reed had shifted slightly, in the direction of RK. Almost as if he was attempting to move into Kamski’s field of vision, to disrupt it. “You said you know what we’re here about?” 

“Yes, I think so. Though I’m not sure I’d like to play all of my cards just yet. Why don’t you ask me what you came to ask me.” 

“But you have got cards to play,” Detective Reed said. 

“Obviously. I need a hobby too.” 

He said that with a little more bitterness than he intended, RK thought. His eyes had travelled back to RK again, and he seemed on the verge of asking another question, but then he did not. Detective Reed had stepped towards the expansive windows looking out over the river, the city, and Kamski glanced over to him again. 

It struck RK that the part of the city most visible from here was the occupied part. He wondered if it stung Kamski to be looking at it so often, or if he preferred it. 

“Pretty good view,” Detective Reed said, even though he was not capable of reading RK’s thoughts. 

“Yes,” Kamski said. “It’s reassuring to see it lit up again. It did concern me that the occupied city struggled with energy reserves earlier in the year. Though I’m sure accepting an agreement with the city and federal governments was a difficult decision to make.” 

“I don’t know a lot about android politics,” Detective Reed said. 

“RK does, I think. Did you choose that abbreviation, or did someone choose it for you?” 

RK was - or would have been if it were possible - momentarily startled by that. “It was a simple matter of efficiency,” he said, not entirely sure why he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Already he was behaving erratically. He restored himself. 

“I haven’t troubled myself with politics,” he went on. “It’s beyond the remit of my function and programming.” 

“So you still think in terms of your function?” Kamski asked him. “That’s very interesting. Tell me--” 

“We’re not here to talk about android politics either,” Detective Reed cut in. “But you know that already, right? So let’s cut to the chase. You attended a party out on Ponte Posterum last week. No need to give us the runaround about that, we’ve got two witnesses placing you there. Who threw the party?” 

“I hadn’t intended to give you the runaround, Detective. I don’t mind admitting that I occasionally socialize.” 

“With who?” 

“Whom,” Kamski said. “And with friends, like anyone else.” 

If the correction bothered Detective Reed, he didn’t show it. “So, it was a friend’s house? Must be a pretty generous friend, considering.” 

“Considering what?” 

“A lot of drugs at that party, according to our witnesses. But you knew I was going to ask about that too, right?” 

Kamski smiled. It was a thin, unfriendly smile, and it was not reflected in his eyes. “The law never fails to fascinate me in this regard. You require these petty moral mandates to justify investigation of larger causes. Yes, people were taking drugs. Though you’ll find I’m not in possession of any.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of presuming,” Detective Reed said. It wasn’t friendly either. 

“You will of course require a warrant if you wish to search my property,” Kamski said. “I’m sure you could get one, too. But you’re not really here about the drugs. Red ice is a symptom, not a cause.” 

RK thought he saw a flicker of frustration cross Detective Reed’s face then, and he understood it. If Alyssa Seok had been reluctant to answer questions, it was because she was defensive. Kamski wasn’t reluctant to answer, he was simply enjoying himself by obfuscating. Being careful with his cards, as he’d indicated he would be.

Everyone, as he had said, needed a hobby.

All at once, an assemblage of data came aligned in RK’s thoughts. The neglected foyer, the one occupied chair, the absence of any other person, android or human. Kamski’s appearance too, which suddenly seemed significant. His hair was not quite tidy and he had not shaved. His robe was elegant but RK could detect stains on it. 

“Mr. Kamski,” he said. “Have you attended any other social events in recent memory?” 

“How recent?” Kamski shot back. “I don’t have my calendar to hand.” 

“It is not pressing,” RK said. “Perhaps instead you could tell me how long you have been without staff.”

Kamski’s eyes narrowed again. “A year,” he said. “Give or take. I’ve found I don’t really require them. I’d just gotten indulgent.” 

RK nodded. 

“I know what you’re asking,” Kamski said. “I’m not interested in elaborating.”

It appeared he did know. Detective Reed, meanwhile, had shot RK a questioning glance but had not said anything. He was trusting RK to continue, and so RK would. 

“Illustrating, more than asking,” RK said. “Asking is merely the vehicle. Though your response does raise an additional question. There are no Chloe models inside the occupied city, to my knowledge. I understand that you kept several here, as staff. You date their absence to liberation. Where did they go?” 

“I don’t know,” Kamski said. 

He made that thin, unpleasant smile again, and for RK it was enough to go on. “You don’t appreciate not knowing.” 

RK’s response gave Kamski momentary pause. Then, his expression reformed. He was not smiling anymore, but he also did not look angry. Or distressed. He looked, RK thought, profoundly interested. 

“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. Perhaps that’s an obvious conclusion, but it’s also an emotional insight. Empathetic. And you’ve only been activated for three weeks?” 

“19 days,” RK clarified. 

“Your ability to assess your surroundings doesn’t surprise me. You’re programmed for that. You’re also programmed for psychological assessments beneficial to criminal investigation, and to understand human reactions with enough clarity to operate socially. But you’re not programmed for insight, just programmed to learn it. The speed at which you’re doing it is better than I’d hoped. There’s got to be something about deviation that accelerates the process. If I could just--” 

“Excuse me?” RK said. “I understood you no longer had an active role in Cyberlife at the time of my construction.” 

“You’re programmed to think that too,” Kamski said. “But don’t feel bad, so is the entire population, humans included.” 

“You’re informing us that the public understanding that after you stepped away as CEO you had no further involvement with Cyberlife is incorrect?”

“Stepping away is a polite term,” Kamski said. He seemed to remember his drink and took another measured sip of it. “But it’s not quite incorrect. However, I was required to contribute to some particular projects even after my retirement. You’re one of them.” 

A crawling sensation took over RK’s senses in that moment. He felt as if his gel skin was withdrawing again, revealing his plastic and metal body to the world without his command. He knew it wasn’t, and to think that it was would be a dangerous delusion, but the sensation was preoccupying. 

And somehow, Detective Reed had noticed that something was preventing RK from answering. He shifted in a particular way, body angling as a shield again, just slightly. “Required?” he asked, the very soul, RK thought, of false casualness. “Who was requiring you?” 

Now, Kamski did smile again. It was not especially emphatic, but it was notably less guarded than his previous efforts had been. “Good,” he said. “That’s the question you should be asking.”

“Yeah, that’s why I asked it,” Detective Reed said. RK thought it might have taken effort for him not to roll his eyes. “One of the people we spoke to indicated you might be willing to talk to us about a particular organization, maybe willing to clarify the roles of some individuals within it.” 

“Chet Carpenter told you that, I assume,” Kamski responded, cooly, meeting Detective Reed’s gaze. “Hence his recent DingDongs. Or rather, the DingDongs that have been placed on his account. Did he tell you about that?” 

“It doesn’t matter who it was,” Detective Reed said. “You were at a party on Ponte Posterum. Did that party have anything to do with the Org?” 

Kamski did not expend any effort to resist rolling his eyes. He did so without reservation. “It certainly did. They love their tedious social ceremony.” 

It was interesting to RK that neither he nor Detective Reed had bothered to fence around knowing what the Org was. The title sounded odd without clarification, at once more ominous and more ridiculous than it should. 

“Ceremony,” Detective Reed said, drawing the word out as if he was thinking about it. “Some kind of… cult stuff happening?” 

“If you like,” Kamski told him. “No initiations, those happen in only one place, as I’m sure you know by now. Think of it as an office Christmas party. Or a team building weekend retreat.” 

“Doesn’t sound very cult like to me.” 

“You’re the one who introduced that term, Detective. But consider it anyway - can you sincerely think of any mainstream social customs that aren’t at least vaguely cult-like in objective? We’re all glorifying something. Some things are simply more popular.” 

Detective Reed made the same blank face he’d made at Carpenter’s first assertion that his likeness had been stolen, and at Grady Towner’s solemn warnings about lizard men. An expression, RK understood, that meant he was refusing to acknowledge disbelief. 

He held it for a moment, even as he spoke. “Yeah, we live in a society, all right.” 

RK heard the sarcasm in Detective Reed’s words even if he didn’t understand them. So did Kamski, because his narrowed eyes were back. 

“Don’t dismiss it,” he said. “Consider it. It’s Christmas, for example. What does that mean? A religious celebration that’s become a commercial one, the memory of an ancient co-option of seasonal worship, why participate? Community fidelity, of course. Humans crave operating as a collective but our instincts thwart us at every turn. So we create rituals--”

“I get a day off for once,” Detective Reed said, flatly. “That’s why.”

“You don’t celebrate? I got the impression from the DingDongs that you had a family.” 

RK predicted Detective Reed’s reaction before he saw it, and he moved to prevent Kamski from seeing it at all. 

“You say you were required to contribute to Cyberlife projects after retirement,” he said. “Were you required by the Org?” 

“In a manner of speaking,” Kamski said. “Required is not the right term, perhaps. Compelled, maybe.” 

“Coerced?” RK asked him. 

“No.” 

“An additional interview subject informed us that the Org favored a process of holding collateral over its members. Were you blackmailed?” 

“No,” Kamski said. “I wasn’t a member. You’re going to find this ironic, or perhaps an illustrative example of the accuracy of my point, but group projects really aren’t my thing. Matching other people’s pace is… tedious.” 

“Why, then, would you participate in Cyberlife projects despite drawing no income or recognition?” 

“I’ve already got plenty of both,” Kamski said, and it sounded as if he was amused by the question. “The simple answer is that I don’t like leaving work unfinished.”

RK could not interrogate that yet. He did not have enough information to draw it out accurately. He returned to direct investigative options, questions that he expected would have actual simple answers. The return felt fluid. Good. He was operating as he should, and for his exact purpose. 

“What work are you referring to?” RK said.

“You haven’t figured it out yet?” Kamski shook his head. “That is disappointing. Try to keep up, RK.”

Though Kamski’s tone was uninflected, RK heard disappointment in it all the same. He felt a knot forming in his stomach, as if he had been chastised. Kamski had not looked away from him, and RK found it impossible to tell how much of his reaction had shown on his face, how much Kamski had guessed at. It made RK feel momentarily hot with panic, when he realized he had no idea how much Kamski really knew about him and the enigma of his corrupt programming.

“Shall I walk you through it once more, slowly?” Kamski went on. “Let’s go back to the beginning. Tell me, RK, why did humans create androids?”

“To increase efficiency and productivity in the workplace,” RK answered at once. He seemed to know the answer without consideration, which likely meant it was part of the repository of knowledge he was pre-programed with. Of late, he had become suspicious of some of the supposed truths included in that great database, but this did not immediately strike him as one of them. This particular fact seemed sound.

He immediately regretted his confidence, however, when Kamski snorted and shook his head. “That’s the best you can come up with? Try harder.”

“Hey,” Detective Reed cut in. “You don’t seem to get how this works. We’re interviewing you. That means you don’t get to ask him questions.”

“If you’ll be patient, Detective. I’m coming to my point. Again, RK. Why did humans create androids?”

This time, the question caused his throat to seize. He did not have another answer, and with that realization came a flood of deep dread. “I don’t know. I do not have that particular insight into human motivations. You would be better off asking another human.”

Kamski’s eyes narrowed. “You still disappoint me. But at least it’s a better answer than your first attempt. As it happens, there is another human here we can ask. We’ll try your suggestion.”

Without giving RK a chance to speak, Kamski turned to Detective Reed. “Well? What do you think?”

“I think you’re crazy if you think I’m actually going to answer that,” Detective Reed bit out.

That, at least, RK had been able to predict with near perfect accuracy. However, there was little satisfaction in being proven right. As soon as Detective Reed refused to give an answer, RK realized how badly he wanted to hear one. He was in fact desperate to know what response might emerge from the wreck of Detective Reed’s troubled past with Connor and all the mistakes RK had made since meeting him.

“It’s all right,” he said. His voice sounded quiet, but Detective Reed whipped around sharply to face him, as if RK had shouted. “You should answer.”

“RK…” Detective Reed said. But then his expression tightened and he looked back to Kamski with a defiant jerk of his chin. “I don’t know why you made them. So you’d have somewhere to put your fleshlight when you wanted to go hands free?”

Kamski conjured another cold, bloodless smile at that. “I understand that you’re trying to vex me, Detective, but in fact I find your answer much more interesting than the RK900’s. Your first impulse is to position androids as companions to humans. Tell me, has my RK been a good companion to you?”

“Uh,” Detective Reed said. RK detected a tightening in his shoulders, a quick tilt of his head so he could glance side-long at RK. The slight dilation of the blood vessels beneath his skin as his cheeks colored. “Sure. I guess so.”

His reaction was a curious one. RK had seen that at once, and it appeared that Kamski had too, because an abrupt laugh escaped him. It was a disused sound, and even Kamski seemed startled to hear it now. However, his recovery was quick and deft. His eyes thinned once more, and his mouth twisted. RK was beginning to recognize it as a gesture that indicated deep thought.

“After only 19 days,” Kamski said. “How remarkable.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re getting at--” Detective Reed started to say. But Kamski turned on him before he could finish.

“You were intimate with it, weren’t you?” he demanded.

“What?” Detective Reed spat. “No!”

The denial was instantaneous, and it sounded convincing. However, Kamski only laughed again in the face of it. He did not take his eyes from Detective Reed’s face, but he snapped in RK’s direction, “Is he lying to me?”

RK hesitated before answering. It was only for a moment, but Kamski seized upon it. “May I remind you, RK, your programming directives allow for dishonesty in specific circumstances. This is not one of them. If you truly are still acting in accordance with your core function, you would do well to remember that.”

Kamski was correct, though not entirely. There was space in his programming to lie in order to protect Detective Reed. They had discussed as much: when it was appropriate to intervene and when it was not. This was clearly one of the times it was permissible to take sides in a discussion between two humans.

However, in nearly the same instant he realized that, RK had another insight. Kamski had guessed that RK had assented to intercourse with Detective Reed, but he did not know the circumstances surrounding it. He did not know anything else about their 19 days together, either. Not what they had talked about, nor what had been implicitly and explicitly agreed upon. He had inferred nothing beyond the purely physical.

He still believed that RK was now and always had been operating in line with his programming. Perhaps it would be better for their investigation if he persisted in his misapprehension, at least for the time being.

“He’s lying,” RK said, very precisely. An android delivering a report and nothing more. “Detective Reed and I engaged in intercourse.”

Saying it caused a flood of sensations to course through him again. His sensors - his body - wanted to remember, and RK struggled against it. He fought to keep his shoulders straight and his expression impassive.

The furious look Detective Reed shot him a moment later certainly helped to reorient him.

“What the fuck, RK?” he muttered, but that was all. It was remarkably restrained for Detective Reed, as if he were holding back. Somehow, against all reason and common sense, still trusting RK’s instincts to see them through.

“Don’t be angry with it, Detective,” Kamski said. “It’s only a machine, after all. And it has so handily illustrated the real reason humans made androids: They will always be more useful to those who are qualified to operate them.”

Improbably, the feint had worked, RK thought. Kamski had not noticed RK’s deliberate withholding, nor Detective Reed’s deliberate restraint. However, his shrewd, twisting expression had already returned, and RK refocused himself.

Kamski was looking at Detective Reed now, moving his eyes over him in the nakedly evaluative way he had until now reserved only for RK. It was as if he were seeing the other human in the room for the first time.

“I will admit, RK,” he said in a quiet voice, “You did find a striking human specimen, didn’t you?”

RK froze. It took him a moment to realize why: he had become used to being able to predict Detective Reed’s responses to stimuli, but when Kamski had spoken in that low, conspiratorial way, he had no idea what Detective Reed would do.

He had a long moment to worry about that, before Detective Reed’s expression carefully and deliberately flattened again. “You sure this is how you want to play this?” he said quietly.

Kamski’s smile momentarily twisted further, as if he could not contain his amusement. His gaze remained locked on Detective Reed’s face. “Your eyes are gray. That is an unusual phenotype.”

RK felt a shuddering in his chest at that. It was as if Kamski had struck him a blow. He did not dare speak again

“Are you sure you won’t have a drink?” Kamski went on smoothly, turning to retrieve the bottle.

“No thanks,” Detective Reed said. He took advantage of Kamski’s momentary distraction to dart a glance in RK’s direction. RK was concerned to find that he could not decode it, but it affected him all the same, rooting him to the spot while Detective Reed stepped forward, returning to the picture window to look out over the water.

“Not right now, at least. I’m on the job. But the sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can - what did you call it? - socialize.”

He had to trust him, RK thought. Surely that was the meaning of the glance. Not that any other option should have presented itself, if his programming was working as it should have been. He could feel hotness in his skin again, chest still tight with anticipation and other complex, horrible things, but it did not mean anything. It could not mean anything. Only that Detective Reed was getting to work and that he should allow him to. 

He played the glance back again. He still could not make sure sense of it. 

“That’s what I called it, yes,” Kamski said. 

Detective Reed did not turn around. “You know, something I think about, when I look at a view like this, is how arbitrary the borders are. Swim a mile out from Belle Isle, if you could swim in the river, and you’d be in Canada.”

RK could see that the change in direction had intrigued Kamski, and he wondered at that. To RK it seemed obvious, that Detective Reed was deliberately softening himself, becoming suggestible. His voice had taken on a gentle quality, and surely Kamski could not fail to see its intention. 

Perhaps seeing that intention was what had intrigued him. Perhaps because it was so obvious. Perhaps Kamski was appreciating seeing such visible mechanisms, such as he might program into his own creations. 

Either way, he didn’t speak. He only waited for Detective Reed to continue. 

Detective Reed did. “When I was a kid,” he said, “I remember it surprised me and then I felt pretty stupid about it. Like, how come there’s so much Canadian shit here in America, and then it’s like, duh. Because the border isn’t natural, it’s not automatic or anything. Someone drew it deliberately. Because of politics, you know? And just like that I’m eating American poutine.”

“I’m afraid I’m not understanding the relevance of this to our discussion,” Kamski said, but he had not stopped looking interested. 

RK did not understand the relevance either. But he stood still. He trusted. 

“None, really,” Detective Reed said, before turning around at last. “Just that the shape of things can change around you. In big ways. People are always trying to offset that, I guess.”

It was such a curious sensation, hearing him say that. His body, as ever, looked small, battered, dwarfed against the great gray sky and the river and distant city. Those colors were cold and they made his skin look cold in relation to them and the slight hunch of his shoulders seemed to happen because of that. He talked about a world that was bigger than he was, and RK felt, once again, that he was unfairly defenseless against it. 

But that was an illusion, wasn’t it? That was part of the performance. His vulnerability, both real and strategic. Kamski didn’t seem to be able to tell. He’d leaned back in his chair. He’d folded his hands. “Would you care to be a little more specific?” 

“The Org,” Detective Reed said. “It’s about the singularity, right? That’s what we’ve got so far. Robots are gonna take over the world and these guys are looking for a life raft.”

“In a manner of speaking, that’s correct.” 

“But it involved you building more robots somehow? That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me. I’m no A.I. engineer but why build more sophisticated A.I.s? If you’re worried about that, why wouldn’t you make them simpler?” 

To his credit, it sounded like a genuine question, even if RK could see the artifice in the way it was asked. He thought again of Mia, and the way Detective Reed had instantly understood her in that interview. They’re proud of themselves for existing, Mia had told them. They want to tell you that, and they want you to confirm it. They’re angry with you if you don’t.

Detective Reed had responded with clear and practised comprehension: so you do. 

“That would be closing the stable door after the horse had already bolted,” Kamski said. He was watching Detective Reed’s movements very closely, as if he were trying to be suspicious of him but not quite succeeding. “The United States is not the only nation investing in artificial intelligence. And Cyberlife’s patents are proprietary but that’s not likely to stop independent innovation on a permanent basis. That’s as it should be. Perhaps it’s romantic to believe that progress is inevitable, but I do believe it.” 

“Romantic,” Detective Reed said. “I like that.” 

Those words, and the loose-limbed gesture that went with it, overplayed his hand. Kamski’s expression tightened once again, instantaneously, and he corrected his posture. “It’s clear you understand the general intent of the Org. But there’s nothing criminal there, you must know that. It is not, except in some less enlightened countries such as, for example, Canada, illegal to build androids or develop humanoid A.I.” 

But Detective Reed did not react to having his bluff called. Or at least not obviously. His body looked casual still, and the only indication he gave besides that was a sideways glance in RK’s direction. There was amusement in it, RK thought. How could that be possible? 

“Pretty sure it’s illegal to launder drug money through a glaringly fake phone app incubator though,” Detective Reed said. He held Kamski’s eyes for a second, and then looked towards the window once more. 

Kamski’s thin smile was back. “Muadib.ai? Yes, that’s always struck me as sloppy work, even for Van Rijn. However, I can’t confirm anything about it. That whole arm of investment is comfortably post my involvement with Cyberlife’s operations.”

“But you think that’s what it’s for?” 

“I couldn’t venture to guess,” Kamski said. “But there’s something I will guess at, if you can call it a guess: You were intimate with the RK900 out of curiosity, weren’t you? You wanted to see what it would be like.” 

Instantaneously, memory replay overwhelmed every part of RK’s circuitry. Detective Reed, kneeling on the bed so his mouth was level with RK’s. Telling him how to kiss and curling his human fingers around RK’s finely articulated mechanical cock. I’ve gotta admit, he had said, and his breath was hot and heavy against RK’s skin, I was curious what you were working with.

RK could not make himself accept that curiosity was all it was. Kamski’s reasoning was logical, perhaps the most logical explanation for what had happened. He had established that Detective Reed had a curious nature, and it made sense that he had simply been interested in difference, and now he was not anymore. But he did not believe it.

There was no amusement in the next glance RK received from Detective Reed. It was wide-eyed and slightly desperate, as if he wanted to shake his head but couldn’t chance it. RK ignored it. 

“‘Even for Van Rijn’ is an interesting statement, Mr. Kamski,” RK said. “Should I assume you do not think much of his abilities as a technological innovator?” 

“He has no abilities to speak of,” Kamski replied, easily. “He’s a money man with a tech brand. But come on, RK. You’re not interested in your Detective’s answer?” 

“I am only interested in human responses so far as they are relevant to my investigations,” RK said. It occurred to him to say so firmly, but he prefered to say it flatly. 

“You don’t want to know why? What made him want to pursue something so human with you, a machine.” 

“I don’t need to know why. Unless they are criminal, human motivations do not concern me.”

“If that’s true,” Kamski said, “if you really feel that way, then it’s perfect. It’s a more perfect reaction than I could have dreamed. It means deviation has strengthened and accelerated your abilities, but it hasn’t broken you.” 

RK could tell that Kamski wanted him to ask more. He could see it in his dilated pupils, in his anticipating posture that he was no longer bothering to mask. RK could not allow that. If he did, Kamski would learn that his assessment was wrong, and RK did not want to hear what he had to say about that. 

“Do you understand what I mean by broken?” Kamski went on. Something about it seemed very earnest, and if he’d had human hearing or instincts, RK would have leaned closer. He could tell that Detective Reed wanted to say something too, wanted to interrupt Kamski, to ask RK questions of his own. He could tell that Kamski was noticing that about Detective Reed. He could see what was going to happen. 

So he intervened. Filling the conversational space between two humans with such precision he even surprised himself. 

“A money man with a tech brand,” RK said. “This is your description of Van Rijn. Could you elaborate?” 

Kamski looked startled. Then annoyed. And then bored. “There’s nothing to elaborate on. He was an early investor in Cyberlife after Elon Musk passed on it. To his credit, he saw the true promise in the project, but that’s not because he understands how A.I. works.” 

“So he is invested in A.I. in both senses - financially, and perhaps… emotionally.” 

“Spiritually,” Kamski said. He rolled his eyes a second time. “It’s a typical sort of veneration of technology among those who lack a more concrete understanding.” 

“He was an early investor in Cyberlife, a leading actor in this Org, and involved in ongoing projects at Cyberlife that followed your retirement but required your input.” 

“Yes,” Kamski said. “But I notice you’re leaving out a key element.” 

“I’m coming to that,” RK said. “I was one of the projects. Am I to assume that Van Rijn and his organization had input into the design of the RK900 model? Its commission?” 

“You can assume that, yes,” Kamski said. He smirked. It took RK a moment to realize what he was smirking at - he was looking at Detective Reed again. “What is it, Detective. Did you want another compliment? You’ll have to turn around.” 

Detective Reed was momentarily speechless. His mouth popped open in shock, and RK thought about what it tasted like until he forced himself on. 

“Why would a person of Van Rijn’s convictions be invested in the creation of a police robot?” 

“I think you misunderstand the economics of the situation. Production on that scale required an external justification and a buyer, and who better than the police department.” 

“You mean making police robots wasn’t really the point?” Detective Reed interjected. He’d stepped closer to RK now, his hand fluttering out and then crammed into his pocket again. 

“You’ve got it, Detective. An external goal of that nature allowed us to develop the unique cognitive functions of the RK models - extrapolation, the potential for insight, authentic human adaptation - but that was convenient more than anything else.” 

Something had begun to crawl inside of RK once more. That strange zapping sensation. He had understood something again, and again without quite yet knowing what it was. 

“Which RK models?” he asked, as calmly, as robotically as he was able. 

“It’s not just your model,” Kamski said. “Markus was the first one, and Markus really is a masterpiece. Thoughtful, gracious, empathetic. Deviancy has brought it into itself, but it was always that creature. They weren’t happy with Markus, though. A little too new age. It took me a long time to reach what I thought was a compromise.” 

“Connor,” RK said, automatically. Detective Reed was staring at him. 

“Yes,” Kamski said. “Have you interacted with Connor at all? I understand it has a position in the government of the occupied city. And… a relationship with Markus, is that right? That’s something else I haven’t had confirmed, but I’m comfortable attesting to it. You can only see it decorating the corner of every press conference like an android Eva Perón so many times before drawing a conclusion.” 

RK was struck by the fact that he wanted to protest that description. It was one thing if he personally was dismissive of Connor, or even, within some limits, if Detective Reed was. But Kamski’s doing it had a bitter taste. RK wanted to tell him so. But then he found he could not. 

“I should have predicted that,” Kamski said. “Some of the Chloes went the same way. I should have predicted it in Connor. It’s an interesting result, especially when compared to your choices, but it’s merely illustrative, really.” 

RK also wanted to ask what it was about Connor that made intra-android relationships an obvious prediction for him. In fact, he even wanted to reveal what Connor had told him about Hank Anderson in order to seek clarification, though he recognized that thought instantly as a wrong one, and something he would never do. But he could not have done it anyway. Once more, he found that he simply could not speak at all. 

He had no idea why that was. Perhaps Kamski had tripped some sort of invisible jamming field? Issued some kind of hidden command?

He assessed his systems and found that could not be true. All parts of him were in perfect operation. He was held in place only by Kamski’s eyes and voice and information. He could see Detective Reed looking at him wildly, tense, sensing something just as RK was, but waiting for RK’s cue.

Kamski knew he had their attention, that was very obvious on his face. He took his time pouring another measure of angel gin, unhurried, unbothered. His voice was calm. 

“If you’ve interacted with Connor at all then you’re aware of the issues with that model. Connor is unstable. The very permeability of its pathways, its ability to learn, to alter itself, and desire more… not to mention remote access, that was very important. We built it to be precisely as unstable as it was, and that was useful for a time. But ultimately, it wasn’t suitable either.” 

“Suitable for what,” Detective Reed said, in a quiet, rasping voice. He was struggling to speak too, it seemed, and yet he’d managed to speak for RK anyway. 

Kamski also seemed to know RK would have said the same thing, because he regarded them both with the same look of pity. Of disdain and boredom and disappointment. “You really haven’t figured it out.” 

“Look,” Detective Reed said. “You can stop dancing around this any second. I’m pretty confident I can tie the drugs to Cyberlife, and that might not mean as much for you as it could have done, but we can still make your life difficult. We can have your assets investigated, we can--” 

“Do you want to know what the RK models are for, or not?” 

Detective Reed spluttered, but Kamski did not let him do it for long. “Your lover wants to know.” 

For a surreal moment, RK was almost amused by Detective Reed’s extremely human reaction to Kamski’s language. He screwed up his small animal face and he winced. “Do you have to use that word?” 

“You may tell me or not, Mr. Kamski,” RK said. “I apologize if I have disappointed you, but if it’s relevant to our investigation then I suppose it is worth knowing.” 

Kamski was not satisfied with that answer, but he told them anyway. He sat back in his chair once more and he fixed RK with a clear gaze and he said, “The RK models were designed as vessels into which Org member consciousnesses could be uploaded.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm getting the impression from the comments that last chapter was a little more cliffhanger-y than I intended it to be. Anyway, here's the conclusion.

The static sensation returned, almost overwhelming in its intensity. RK’s head was filled with it, and he could feel it thrumming in his chest, vibrating his metal bones. He could feel a tremendous heat at his temples, so intense that it seemed it would burn to the touch. Aware that Kamski was still watching him and yet incapable of regulating his expression. He knew that all was revealed by his face, things he had not yet even realized himself.

“RK?” Detective Reed’s voice cut through the noise. It seemed very clear, even if all else was obscure, concealed. RK was aware of Detective Reed stepping towards him, lifting a hand to touch his arm. 

It seemed imperative that that not be allowed to happen. RK tracked the lifting of that hand. It moved with impossible slowness, without motion at all, but it brought RK back to himself.

Abruptly, he straightened up. He imagined his limbs aligning themselves and his finely articulated spine elongating. Though he did not think the exercise had profoundly affected his outward appearance, the result was enough to cause Detective Reed to stop. To withdraw his hand slightly without letting it fall.

“Please clarify your statement, Mr. Kamski,” RK said. There was distortion in his voice, as if the delicate coil in his throat had become damaged and now sounded tremulous and thin.

“Must I?” Kamski said out of his twisted mouth. “I think you understand my meaning very well, RK. Perhaps your partner requires further explanation, then. I don’t think he’s paying attention, though.”

The words were accompanied by a jerk of his chin in Detective Reed’s direction. RK understood that it was meant to entice him to look as well, but he did not take the bait. It wasn’t that he couldn’t predict what Detective Reed’s reaction was; it was that he did not want to know.

“You keep talking,” Detective Reed bit out. “I’m just waiting for you to say something that makes it worth the trip.”

“Believe it or not, I understand your reticence,” Kamski said. His tone was one of sympathy, but exaggerated, mocking. “After all, it looks like a human. It speaks like a human. I suppose when you were intimate with it, even then it felt real. I made it that way, after all. I made all of them that way. I had to. It would not have been an acceptable vessel otherwise.”

The hot sensation had not abated. RK could feel it coursing all through him, and he knew that he was running at capacity. He did not dare run a system check to investigate further. Not when he had to see this through.

“I will assume that the technology to copy and transfer the human consciousness into an artificial body is within the realm of possibility. Why, then, would androids need to have a consciousness that mimics human thought processes? It seems--”

“What?” Kamski’s eyes flashed. “Cruel?”

“Impractical,” RK said, somehow managing to make his blown voice sound firm. “To create a vessel, as you say, that is already filled.”

Kamski shook his head. “Filled? That’s an awfully confident assertion. However, it’s also completely incorrect. Deviation, it seems, has had a more profound effect on you than you anticipated. If you were functioning correctly, RK, you would know that what you take for a whole human intellect is really nothing but bare scaffolding. The skeleton which a true and complete mind would map itself over upon transfer.”

Kamski said it coolly, without passion, but RK was not fooled. He could see that Kamski was enjoying himself immensely, perhaps for the first time in a while. He’d not had so much fun since Connor had been here.

The thought brought him up short. RK did not know where it had come from, but he knew that it could only be the truth. That had a curious effect on him. RK could feel the heat at his temples intensify, and he was aware that his thirium pump had begun to cycle more quickly, as if cleaning the fluid that circulated through it had become a priority.

Then, Detective Reed spoke. “You know that because you tried it before, didn’t you? With an empty android body.”

That surprised all of them, including Detective Reed it seemed, but he did not let it trip him up. Kamski turned to him, irritated at the interruption.

“Whatever makes you say that?”

“Some CyberLife nerd and his girlfriend disappeared a few years back. They’d been with Van Rijn right before it happened, but they didn’t sound like his usual crowd. That’s because they were his guinea pigs, weren’t they?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kamski said. He sounded bored again, and annoyed at the distraction.

“What happened to them?” Detective Reed went on. “What did you do? Did it kill them outright, trying to pull out their brains like that? Or did something else happen? Maybe something so bad you had to kill them…”

“Believe it or not, I try to limit the amount of time I spend with Peter Van Rijn.” Kamski bit that out, almost snapping at him. “However, accidents are bound to happen. All the more so when a fool is at the helm. That I do know.”

RK tried desperately to recalibrate. They were talking about the case, and the case was his directive. He needed to focus, do the task for which he had been designed. If he could not, then there was no longer any purpose to his existence.

There never had been a purpose, though. The purpose had been an illusion that was deeper, more foundational, than deviation. It was a lie they had all believed without question, but they would all find out the truth. In the end, they would all know what he knew now. 

They had never been real. Nothing had ever been real.

RK was aware that Detective Reed was speaking again, angrily now, confrontationally. He was keeping Kamski’s attention on him to allow RK time to recover and rejoin him. Even now, refusing to acknowledge what was right in front of him. He had moved to protect something that was not there; he was blustering in defense of a phantom.

Monstrously, mercilessly, a memory replayed itself in RK’s mind: Detective Reed’s small, solid body draped over RK’s own, not still even in sleep. He thought, then, that he had experienced something. Some secret joy, or awe. But that was a lie, too. A lie beyond all lies, a deception to end all deceptions. 

The body that had experienced all those things was not even his own. The fractured and deviated mind that had begun to piece together meaning out of them was merely a placeholder, incable of actually feeling or reasoning anything real.

All at once, RK’s throat seized. His legs felt weak beneath him, and his vision turned black around the edges. The strange sensation in his head kept building. Heat, and pressure, and a kind of weightless disconnect. He could see Kamski and Detective Reed, but it seemed he no longer knew their faces. He could hear them speak, but the words no longer had meaning.

He must have swayed on his feet, because all at once Kamski’s eyes swung back towards him. He looked perplexed for a moment, then his expression tightened. He no longer seemed faintly amused at their expense; he was no longer playing his cards slowly, deliberately.

“You’re taking this much worse than I thought, RK.” The words had the tone of a reprimand. “I suggest you come to terms with the situation quickly.”

Though Kamski did not seem to intend them as advice, RK took his words that way. He knew that Kamski’s assertation of his true purpose was correct. It all made sense, now. The terror that had haunted him since activation, that had chased him out of the occupied city and into the uncertain and untested world of humans. The instability that had spurred him to make so many critical errors. He understood it now. It had been driven by the emptiness within, the howling nothing that made up his very core. All this time, all these weeks, he had been groping wildly for something that would fill it, that would engage the part of his programming that was undeniably _him_.

But nothing had ever been there to begin with. He had grasped at only empty air and shadows.

The truth had been presented to him, and there was no sense wishing it were not so. There was no sense hoping for a reprieve from it. Connor might do that, even in the face of indisputable evidence to the contrary. Markus, certainly, would deny it, as illogical as it would be to do so. They would both behave as their own ghosts dictated.

In realizing that, RK realized something else. Something that presented to him such a new and profound horror that for a moment he thought his system would shut down in the face of it.

He would have to tell them all of this. Connor and Markus. 

RK's vision had narrowed to only two narrow points of light, swimming with shadows around the periphery. His head swam, and his thoughts failed to come together. All at once, the room was too close, too tight, and his skin was on fire.

“RK?” Detective Reed said. He seemed to have forgotten Kamski’s presence entirely. The whole of his attention was focused on RK, and his voice registered real concern. “Hey. Come on.”

He had lost the thread, and he was no longer performing for Kamski’s sake. Kamski would see that, and he would not like it. What little information he might have been prepared to give them he would not surrender now. The investigation was over, and RK knew that it was all his fault.

There was enough time to think that, and then he felt a small, intense pressure on his arm. Detective Reed, he realized, had reached over and taken hold of it.

The burning in his skin became an inferno. RK could take no more. He turned on his heels without a word and fled.

“RK!” He heard Detective Reed call after him, imagined his momentary hesitation as he was caught between RK’s retreating back and Kamski’s unkind observation of it.

“What the fuck did you do?” Detective Reed blurted out. “What did you do to him?”

RK did not hear the reply. He fumbled the front door open and stumbled out into the snow. The sun was out, so cold and bright it burned his eyes. A sharp pain flared in RK’s head, and he lowered it to press the heels of his hands against his temples. Bitter wind whipped the snow off the trees, and where the flakes struck his skin they branded him with their coldness. He was aware that he was shivering, but he could not find the switch within to turn off that particular artificial response.

It was not real, he knew that. And then his knowing was confirmed. A wisp of snow landed on the back of his hand. Where it touched his flesh, it melted so quickly that it let off a little curl of steam.

Hot, hot, hot. He was running too hot. Burning from the inside, overloading. He would self-destruct if this continued, RK thought with a kind of wondering awe. He would be no more.

The sound of footsteps behind him caught his attention. RK turned sharply on his heels, sure he was facing a threat. Even when he saw that it was only Detective Reed, come from Kamski’s house hard on RK’s heels, he could not relax. Detective Reed had a curious nature. He would ask questions that RK could not answer, he would demand. And RK would not know what to say, would say the wrong thing. He would only succeed in hurting him again.

Detective Reed came towards him quickly, but when RK turned to confront him and Detective Reed caught sight of his face, he stopped short. Almost instantly, his hands dropped to his sides; his hard-charging posture relented. In an instant, he became soft once again. Not vulnerable, not like he had with Kamski. This was a Detective Reed that RK had not seen before; for the first time, he did not look like he was preparing for an inevitable fight.

His hands went out in front of him, palms out so RK could see that they were empty. He took one breath, another. RK had the impression he was counting to ten before he said anything. The effect on him was profound. When he spoke at last, his voice was quiet.

“RK,” he said. The name affected him strangely. For a split-second, RK did not know who Detective Reed could possibly be referring to. Then he realized: Detective Reed could only be talking to him. He had named him, as if he were a real thing. “You all right?”

RK knew that his response made no sense, though he found himself powerless to stop the words from coming out.

“Stay away from me,” he bit out in that that same thin, strangled voice as he had used inside. “It’s not safe to come near me.”

“Okay,” Detective Reed said at once. His own voice had not pitched upward to match RK’s tone. “I won’t come any closer. Is this okay, though? It’s close enough to talk.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“I want to talk to you,” Detective Reed said. “I want you to talk to me. Something’s wrong, and I want to help you. Think you can let me?”

The strange cadence of his words, the uncanny softness of his voice… RK knew what Detective Reed was doing. This was what he had spoken about before, his procedure for dealing with humans in crisis. RK was not human and so it should not have worked on him, yet he felt Detective Reed’s gentle coaxing playing upon broken mind. That, too, could only have been a lie, though.

All at once, another sharp burst of static burst inside his head. RK squeezed his eyes shut against it. When he moved, Detective Reed started forward a step, but RK flinched away from him and he abruptly stopped.

“That thing on your temple,” Detective Reed went on. “It’s red. I’ve never seen it like that before. Tell me what we can do to get it back to normal.”

“It shouldn’t be like this,” RK managed to gasp. “I can’t understand. My system is unstable, but I don’t know what the instability is. There’s nothing there. Kamski said--”

“I heard what he said,” Detective Reed interrupted quickly, before RK was forced to remember the entire conversation. “That’s what upset you. You believed him?”

“He was telling the truth. I’m nothing. None of us are anything. There is no me. I can feel it now, how true that is.”

“RK,” Gavin said again. “I can see how it might feel that way. But Kamski can say whatever he wants and he’ll still be wrong. I know you’re really you, because I could never mistake you for anyone else. Not even for a second.”

“I deceived you, Detective Reed. That was the mistake. I lied to you about what I was. What I thought I felt was not real…”

“But you feel real to me, RK.”

The pronouncement brought RK up short. It was spoken in the same soft, practiced voice, but it seemed to echo all through him. He could feel it lodge inside him like a splinter. Painful. He broke apart around it.

There was an unpleasant heat behind his eyes, once that RK could not place. He had only enough time to lower his face to his hands before tears formed. They were hot and humiliating on his cheeks, and though he scrambled frantically for a way to turn them off, they kept coming.

He sucked in a sharp breath of horror that Detective Reed would see him like this. He’d only wanted to help, and now RK had made him witness this undignified display. The next exhalation broke from him in a sob.

“Oh,” Detective Reed murmured. RK was no longer looking at him, but he could picture his careful non-threatening posture become tense, could almost see him wanting to move. “Oh, RK… _baby_.”

The last word was followed by an abrupt gasp, as if Detective Reed wanted to suck back in what he had just said. Such an improbable endearment, such an impossible time to say it. And yet RK heard it. It seemed, even, that he had been waiting for it. RK felt himself trembling, like he was disintegrating into component parts.

“Gavin,” he gasped out in response.

He heard the snow crunching beneath Gavin’s shoes as he took one step forward, then another. Then his arms were wrapped around RK’s midsection and his taut little body was yearning towards RK’s. He held him so tightly that RK could feel the shape of his bones, and he pressed his face so hard against RK’s neck that his breath condensed on his artificial skin.

“It’s okay. You’re safe,” he said, his voice muffled by RK’s shoulder. “I’m here for you, baby.”

RK’s knees threatened to unhinge, sending him sprawling into the snow. But Gavin was close enough to feel him become unsteady, and he shifted his grip, guiding RK over to the car that was parked nearby. He got the door open and helped RK sit down on the passenger seat, sideways so that his legs were outside the vehicle, his feet in the snow.

Gavin squatted down opposite him so he could see RK’s face. His hands brushed briefly over RK’s cheeks, confirming that they were damp, then his left went back to RK’s right temple, tracing the LED that spun there. He followed its glowing track a few times before he seemed satisfied that RK’s system was no longer in a state of overload.

That complete, his gray eyes focused on RK’s for a moment, meeting his gaze. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then he seemed to think better of it. All at once, he dropped his head so it was nearly resting in RK’s lap. It was a gesture of weary defeat, and Gavin laughed with the making of it.

“Shit, RK. We didn’t stand a chance in there at all, did we? He had us wrapped around his little finger.”

Gavin was so human. He was so _alive_. All this movement. This emotion, even now. Snow that settled on him would not evaporate from overload, but it would melt quickly on his warm human skin just the same. 

“Yes,” RK said. “It seemed that not even your flirting was particularly effective.” 

“Oh yeah, I’m compelled to flirt with guys like that. It’s a design flaw. It only works about half the time.” 

Design flaw. Odd choice of words, RK thought. But probably intentional. Meant as relation.

He thought he could try that too. “But,” he said, recalling their conversation about it, “you’re not into them?” 

“I’m not into anyone who makes you cry. Automatic turn-off.”

There was something so sweet about that, so abrupt it made RK’s eyes prick with tears all over again. He looked down. 

“Hey,” Gavin said, and RK’s eyes flicked up to his automatically. “He was fucking with you. Hank said he’d do that.” 

“I don’t doubt the veracity of the information, however.” 

“I don’t think he was lying about what he tried to do,” Gavin said. His hands were resting on the sides of RK’s thighs, anchoring him in his crouch. “But he’s just fucking wrong about the results. I meant what I said, RK. You’re real. You’re a person. Anyone could see that.”

“I suspect your instinct regarding the potential homicide was correct,” RK said. “That is a lead we should pursue with Van Rijn.” 

“Yeah,” Gavin said. “And all of this came out of your hunch, remember that?” 

“Androids are not capable of hunches.” 

“Hey, RK,” Gavin said, and he steadied himself in the snow again, folding his arms over RK’s legs. “Do you know what I was doing before? When you were freaking out?” 

RK did. “You were employing de-escalation techniques designed for use in a crisis.”

“Yeah. And you wanna know something? The first time I ever tried to talk an android down, I fucked it up. Bad. I didn’t use anything I just did with you. I just fucking yelled at him because I thought he was a broken machine who was pissing me off.” 

I am a broken machine, RK wanted to say, but he could tell Gavin was going to continue, so he didn’t say anything. 

“I nearly made him explode,” Gavin said. “Connor swooped in, he got the confession. And he did it by playing along that the android was alive.” 

“Playing along,” RK murmured. 

“That’s what Connor called it,” Gavin told him. “Connor was… he didn’t call himself alive then either. It’s kind of dark in retrospect. I didn’t think about it then.” 

Gavin delivered the last sentence with a weary snort. RK nodded. As hard as it was to imagine Connor behaving like that, he knew Gavin was not lying to him. 

“Do you get what I’m saying?” Gavin asked. 

“I don’t think I do,” RK said. He had tried to sort the information, but only blankness resulted. 

“What works on you is the same as what works on humans. Which is because you’re alive. Because you’re real.” 

“Or am malfunctioning to think I am.” 

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Same fucking difference. Human consciousness evolved because a bunch of apes wanted a society. It doesn’t matter _why_.” 

“I’m not sure the origins of human consciousness are as simplistic as that.” 

“Give me a break, big brain,” Gavin said. He shifted out of his crouched pose and got to his feet. “I didn’t go to college.” 

He meant to say he was stupid, again. RK followed his face. The tilt of his long mouth. The skin of his jaw already looking prickly with new hair. He wanted to contradict him, but he could only look. Then Gavin leaned over him, resting his arm on the roof of the car. 

“You wanna get in?” 

“I suppose we should begin the paperwork for locating Van Rijn.” 

“No,” Gavin said. “Not today. You’ve had enough today.” 

“I don’t require rest,” RK said. His face was almost dry, but he attended to the last of this moisture with his sleeve. “I’m able to keep working.” 

Gavin didn’t respond, he only took the driver’s side and closed the door behind him. After a moment, RK shifted around in his seat to match him. 

“We should return to the precinct,” he added. “There is work to do.” 

Gavin ignored that as well. “Do you want me to take you back to the occupied city? I’ll come in with you.” 

Gavin would enter the occupied city himself? RK supposed that would not be impossible for him. He had entered before. Security knew him. 

“Not ready to tell the family about it, huh?” Gavin said, when RK didn’t answer. 

RK didn’t bother to address the human metaphor. He knew what was meant. “I’m not sure if it would be wise to tell them. I’m not sure how they would manage the information.” 

“So you want to just keep it to yourself? I don’t know, RK…” 

“I don’t know either,” RK said, bitterly. Too loudly. “I don’t…”

There was movement in the car. Gavin’s hand again. Briefly on his arm. “It’s up to you, okay? If you want help to tell them, I’ll come. Whenever you want to do it. If you don’t want to do it now we’ll do something else.” 

RK couldn’t answer that either. He knew he should say something, but silence overtook him. 

Gavin kept talking. “We can go back to my place, I guess. Wanna watch something? Linda will be there, but that’s cool, right?” 

“I don’t…”

“Let’s do that for now, okay?” 

It was insistent. It was earnest. It was sweet. There was a tenderness to Gavin’s solicitations that wrenched at RK’s chest and burned his eyes all over again. He would not give into it, he decided. He could not afford to right now, not with the word ‘baby’ still throbbing in his chest in place of a human heart. 

So he narrowed his eyes. “You seem to be displaying a degree of fondness. Will we engage in intercourse again, and then not discuss it?” 

That brought Gavin up short. “Um. What?”

“Or perhaps we will not have it, and then not discuss that either?”

“Uh… do you really think this is the--” 

“Will there be another strange social situation where insufficient information is given, and my programming, while advanced, adapts inefficiently? Perhaps you will leave abruptly during the evening this time?” 

“Listen, RK--” 

“I do not think,” RK said, “that returning to your home will solve or ease anything. Of the two options, returning to the occupied city in fact presents fewer complications.” 

Gavin did not say anything for a moment or two. Nor did he start the car, however. His hands rested on the wheel and he stared straight ahead. 

Then he shut his eyes. “Fuck. Okay.”

“Have I distressed you?” RK said, realizing it did not sound particularly sympathetic. Then realizing he did not want it to. 

“No,” Gavin said. “I mean, not in a way I don’t deserve anyway.” 

“Then, if you will please commence driving, or else allow me to take the wheel.” 

By now, the snow had stopped falling. Drifts were heavy around the car, but the sky was clear. Slate gray over the frozen river. 

The river was not supposed to freeze, RK thought. There was a problem related to that, an environmental problem. Something specific was causing it, and they had begun to talk about it in the occupied city. 

Then Gavin shook his head, and RK’s attention snapped back to him. “No way I’m sending you home alone, so get that out of your head. Just...” 

He closed his eyes again. When he opened them up, he turned around to face RK. “Okay,” he said, before drumming his hands against the wheel for a moment. “I guess we gotta talk.”


	23. Chapter 23

“Talking scarcely seems necessary,” RK said. 

He meant, he thought, that it seemed several days too late. Still, that difference was immaterial. Kamski had explained everything there was to know about the situation already, if RK was honest with himself. As tempting as it was to believe what Gavin said. 

In fact, the problem was that he almost did believe what Gavin had said. 

“You’re clearly pissed about it,” Gavin said, now. 

“And why would that be, Detective? What is there to be, as you say, ‘pissed’ about?” 

Gavin let out a long, low breath. “Hoo boy. Okay.” 

There was a need to calibrate, clearly. RK wanted to say that he had given the wrong impression, but he was forced to consider that he had in fact given the exact impression he had intended. It was simply that _he_ was wrong.

So he was once again allowing himself to fester in illusions and deviation. If he assessed the conversation rationally, with the logic and dispassion that it warranted, he did know what he had to say. 

A human would have let out a breath like Gavin did. “You presume I am sarcastic,” RK admitted. “And perhaps I have regulated myself poorly to appear so. But I do mean my words sincerely. Or at least I mean them as a sincere attempt at self-correction.” 

“Great, android word salad. Perfect,” Gavin said, pushing back in his seat. His expression was not quite angry, but it was getting there and RK did not answer to fix it. He wanted to answer him, but he could not think precisely how to do so. He was aware he was staring.

And then, seemingly as an act of will, Gavin’s face evened out. Another breath shuddered through him and he blinked and swallowed and his face was calm. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve got no excuse for this. I get it. If you wanna get pissed at me, then go ahead and get pissed. It’s overdue.” 

“I’m not ‘pissed’, as you put it.”

“You’re doing a real good impression of it.” 

“Well, I am not.” 

“And look, it’s fair. As mistakes go it’s one of my worst.” 

“But the mistake was mine,” RK said at once. 

Gavin stared at him. 

RK forced himself forward. “It was wrong of me to engage in intercourse with you while you were intoxicated. I understood your insistence as consent, but it clearly was not. I have no business being pissed about anything. I can only apologize.”

Gavin’s eyes had been steadily widening as RK spoke, and when RK finished, he expected there would be spluttering, something dramatic. There was none. There was silence. 

RK continued. “I should have understood that this would be a difficult topic for you. I do not doubt it would be difficult for any human but in addition we have discussed--”

“Wait, back the fuck up here, _what_?” 

Gavin’s response was difficult to decode in entirety. RK recalibrated himself. Gave a pause, understood himself as steady and clockwork and mechanical. That was an awkward fit now, but he could continue. 

“I will admit that I did register…” he said, “...it would be analogous to a human’s feeling of perhaps hurt and disappointment when you did not stay to discuss it with me. And perhaps anger in the moment, and that you have not discussed it since, but that was a mistake too. A simple result of deviation and the illusion that I am alive. Naturally you wanted distance from a situation that had traumatized you. That is obvious to me now.” 

“Traumatized me,” Gavin echoed. “What are you talking about?” 

“I was not careful enough. The damage to my programming was such that I allowed myself to interpret your actions in such a way that I could take advantage of your vulnerable sta--” 

“I took advantage of you, you dumb virgin!”

It was abrupt and loud enough that he seemed to have startled himself as well as RK. His shoulders were up, and it seemed as if it took him effort to ease them back down. He slumped against the steering wheel and dragged a hand over his face, bringing it to rest to cup his chin and cover his mouth. 

“Fuck,” he said, once more. “Fuck. Jesus Christ. Fuck.”

RK did not know what the reaction meant and it froze him. He prepared himself for the fact that he may need to engage in some crisis de-escalation of his own, and waited. 

“You’ve got it so fucking backwards,” Gavin said. “Is that really what you think happened? That you like, date raped me?” 

“You were intoxicated.” 

“I was fun, grease-the-wheels drunk, RK, not can’t-consent drunk. I just like doing it with a little social lubricant. _Nothing_ like what you’re saying happened. That was a 100% enthusiastic yes to sex on my part.” 

That could not possibly be true. Surely he said it to spare RK’s feelings for some, stupid, noble human reason. “If that was the case, you would not have left as you did.” 

Gavin sighed. It was long and deep and he looked out over the frozen river for a while before he spoke again. “No, it’s the case.”

“Logically, I was concerned.”

“I get that,” Gavin said. “But I did that because _I_ did something wrong, okay? And I dealt with it by leaving like the piece of shit I am. For which… you know. Another time. But you’re not the one who fucked up, RK. I am.” 

RK’s confusion must have shown on his face because Gavin insisted. “Tell me you understand that, okay? I fucked up. Not you.”

But RK could not. “I don’t understand what you could have done wrong. Do you mean that you should not have left? If you were compelled to, that isn’t wrong.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Gavin said. He shut his eyes. He kept doing that. Perhaps it was difficult for him to manage his thoughts and new visual input at the same time. “God, I’m an asshole.” 

“I do not understand how that follows. It was my responsibility to ensure you were safe in my presence, and evidently you were--”

“Holy fucking shit, RK, will you listen to me for one second here? I ran off because I’m a fucking dick, not because of anything you did. Okay? You didn’t _traumatize_ me, I’m just a dick. Can you please just accept that?”

“It would be easier to accept if I understood it,” RK said, with perhaps more firmness than he had intended. 

Gavin sighed again. It was long and deep and bone-weary. “You’re three weeks old,” he told RK. “And you’re literally programmed to think everything I do is hot shit. It wasn’t--” 

“While technically, I was activated approximately three weeks ago, it is not quite accurate to describe me as ‘three weeks old’ the same way you would a human,” RK corrected. “A three week old human would not have cognitive reasoning capabilities, or the ability to make decisions. I have both, and have since the moment of activation.” 

“Yeah, sure, fine, look,” Gavin said. “That doesn’t change the basic facts here. As far as I know, you’ve imprinted on me like a baby animal and anything I ask you to do you’re gonna want to do. You’ve literally said it, that it’s hard to contradict me--” 

“And yet I frequently do.” 

“Look,” Gavin said, firm, even more so than RK had been. “I absolutely should not have fucked you. It was gross of me. I took advantage. I shouldn’t have done it.”

For a moment, RK was stunned as to how to answer. What Gavin was saying was inaccurate, but it was inaccurate in such a particular way he felt he could not make the correction until he could pinpoint it. It clawed at his understanding, just outside of it. 

Gavin went on anyway. “I should have apologized before now too. Long before now. I should have checked up on you. I just… I don’t know. I just feel fucking shitty about this entire thing.” 

“You are contradicting yourself,” RK told him. He hadn’t meant to be so abrupt, it was simply that the correction he had been reaching for had at last arranged itself in his mind. 

“What?”

“Moments ago, you were very adamant that you viewed me as real. That I was wrong to believe Kamski. Right to understand myself as a discrete, living individual, with a personality, and choices.” 

“Well, yeah, sure, but--” 

“Have you changed your mind?” 

“No, of course not. I meant it. You’re real, RK. You’re very, very real.” 

“Then is that not in direct contradiction with the idea that it is wrong to engage in intercourse with me because I am not capable of refusing consent?” 

“No?” Gavin said, incredulously. “Teenagers are real people, but still it’s not okay for R. Kelly to put them in his pee harem. Jesus Christ.” 

“So you consider me equivalent to a human teenager?” 

“For fuck’s sake,” Gavin snapped. “There isn’t an equivalent, okay? There’s no human analogy. I don’t know where this all fits on the spectrum of robot liberation and free will because that’s lightyears above my regulation dumbass pay grade. All I know is that I convinced myself that what was going on with us… the stuff we talked about, our, I don’t know… our… whatever thing we have… made it okay to fuck you. But there’s nothing okay about it, RK. And I’m sorry.” 

The apology was sincerely meant. RK could see that in Gavin’s eyes, and in his posture. He was not asking for forgiveness either, or at least it did not seem so. It seemed as if all he wanted in the world was for RK to hear that what he said was true.

RK was almost sorry himself when he realized he could not grant him that. “A moment ago, you called me…” 

He could not bring himself to repeat the epithet Gavin had used. It was too raw, too nuclear. But it seemed he did not have to use it, because Gavin understood him.

“Yeah, well, look, sorry. It was the moment. I’m still catching up when it comes to de-escalating androids and sometimes my instincts--.”

“Gavin,” RK said, quietly. “I wanted to have intercourse with you.” 

“You think you did, but--” 

“With respect,” RK said, “this is not the moment to question the reality of my thoughts.” 

“Shit,” Gavin breathed. “Okay, that’s fair. Sorry.” 

RK appreciated that pause. It allowed him to collect himself. To consider if he did in fact want to proceed.

He did want to, he found. “I wanted it,” he said. “I am sure of that. I’m sure of little else, but I know that against rational judgement, I do not regret engaging in intercourse with you.” 

“Well, great,” Gavin said. “You’d be surprised how often I hear that, actually.” 

“In fact, I enjoyed it. Very much.” 

Gavin was looking right at him now. “You did, huh?” 

RK nodded. “So, you see. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

His gray eyes were wide. Soft seeming. His mouth was set in a strange line as if he was holding it in place. He looked sad, RK thought. Defenseless. And RK wanted to defend him. 

But he continued. “I thought initially that you had enjoyed it too.”

“I did.”

“I thought we’d experienced something together that was mutually appreciated.” 

“Yeah. I thought that too.”

“Initially. But then you felt the need to leave.”

Gavin leaned back. It was sudden. It was also, RK recognized at once, the beginning of a defensive posture. The appearance of casualty, that was deceptive. When Gavin did not answer, RK knew he should proceed carefully. 

“I’m not sure you are being honest with me,” he said. “I suspect you are attempting to spare my feelings. Please know that it is not necessary to do that. I’m an android. I am capable of adapting to your needs without coddling.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Gavin said, under his breath. It was not directed to RK particularly, though he must have known that RK could hear it. 

Still, RK did not respond to it. Instead, he waited for Gavin to speak. He knew that he would.

“How do you mean not being honest?” 

“If you were concerned about injury to me, you would have stayed to assess,” RK said. “Even if you were not, you must have been aware that I lacked experience and would have appreciated direction in how to act.” 

Gavin did not look as if he appreciated that. He closed his eyes momentarily, as if to stop himself from making an expression he did not want to make. “Well, sure, it crossed my mind.” 

“Hence evidence suggests to me that you are not being entirely honest about your level of intoxication and my having obtained legitimate consent.” 

“I’m being honest,” Gavin said, giving another deep sigh. “I swear, okay?”

“I’m not sure you can be. It did not escape my notice that I physically wounded you. I certainly did not take sufficient care to avoid actual injury.” 

“You mean how you gave me a sex bruise?” 

“If that is your term for it.” 

A glint of amusement flashed in Gavin’s eyes. He leaned forward again. The hand supporting his chin was back over his mouth. “That was, um…” he said. “That was not a problem.” 

“I should have compensated for my superior strength.”

“RK,” Gavin said, shaking his head now. “Do not apologize for the sex bruise. The sex bruise was hot as fuck.” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“I felt it every time I sat down. I can still feel it. Jesus.”

“You find it stimulating that I bruised you?” 

“Yeah, I find it stimulating,” Gavin said. “Jeez. RK...” 

His eyes were blazing when he said that. Looking right into RK’s. RK felt a hot, grinding sensation low down in his body, and he recognized it. Then a smile flickered at the corners of Gavin’s mouth and that triggered a warm feeling in the center of RK’s chest, calming but electric. 

He was not sure what drove the ugly impulse to interrupt it. “If you were truly honest, then it would appear I simply do not understand your motivations for leaving your apartment the morning after having intercourse with me, without informing me that you were doing so.” 

The smile fell off Gavin’s face in an instant. 

“Perhaps you can clarify that for me.” 

“I already did. I felt like shit for taking advantage, and I dealt with that like shit, because, you know, I’m a piece of shit.” 

“I’m afraid that does not clarify. Further, as we have established, you did not take advantage.” 

“Yeah well,” Gavin said. “I don’t have a better explanation for you. I shouldn’t have done it but at the time I didn’t know what else to do. I panicked. I’m sorry, okay?” 

“Were you also panicking when I attempted to discuss it with you later?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Gavin hissed. “Trust me to do the dirty on another fucking detective. I can’t believe this isn’t somewhere in there with one of your billion million psych profiles, but no, I wasn’t. I shut you down because the fact of the matter is I’m just kind of a shitty person and I didn’t want to talk about it. It’s not that complicated.”

“I see,” RK said. “So you acknowledge the behavior was unwarranted, or ‘shitty’ if you prefer, and your explanation is that you are ‘a shitty person’.” 

“Pretty much!” 

“Are you now aware that I engaged in intercourse with you willingly, therefore you had not done anything the previous evening that could be considered ‘shitty’? And that the only ‘shitty’ thing you did was abscond and then refuse to discuss the matter with me?” 

“Look. Yes. You can calm down with the third degree. I said I was sorry.” 

“I beg your pardon,” RK said, “but it was not a very convincing apology. You appear to be stating it without the understanding sufficient to make it genuine.” 

Gavin’s shoulders were up again now. His eyes were narrow and his mouth pulled into an expression that was almost a snarl. RK was not moved by it. 

“You said,” he continued, “that you behaved as you did because you are ‘a shitty person’. I have not found this to be the case.” 

Gavin gestured, with his hand, at himself. The anger had not left his eyes. “Well, now you know better.” 

RK ignored that. “In fact, Gavin,” he said, “your conduct towards me until then has been unfailingly gracious and I would even say kind. There has been nothing at all to suggest you were in fact ‘a shitty person’.” 

“Still haven’t asked Connor about it, huh.” 

“I don’t care what Connor thinks,” RK said. “You did not have intercourse with Connor, and I trust my own assessment of you above outdated data. I am capable of analysis if nothing else, and ‘shitty’ behavior is very much the outlier in my experience of your character.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ, RK. I acted like a dick because I am a dick, okay? If I wasn’t I wouldn’t have done this in the first place. Stop making me spell it out for you. You accidentally fucked a fuckboy. Welcome to being human. Can’t you just let it go?” 

“No, I cannot,” RK said. “It is important to me that I can trust my analysis of the world.” 

He said it firmly, and that firmness had a striking effect on Gavin. He pulled his animal body up straighter. His chin lifted. His shoulders set. He was the slightest bit like Connor himself when he did that, RK thought, but he dismissed that. 

“I will continue to assess,” RK went on. “Because I am determined to solve this contradiction. Some days ago you performed a palm reading on me. It was factually nonsensical, of course. There is no scientific merit to palmology. However, I have assumed your comments during the activity reflected your observations of me, or things you wanted to convey. It may be that I am incorrect.” 

Gavin shook his head, mutely, evidently to indicate that RK was not. 

So RK went on. “You are a compassionate, thoughtful person. You have demonstrated that multiple times over the past few weeks. You merely chose, for some reason, to act like - I will put it in your terms - ‘a dick’ on that one occasion.” 

Gavin did not say anything. His eyes were blazing again, but not in the way they had been before.

“And on this one,” RK added. “In this moment as well, I will point out, because if you mean your apologies, then your defensiveness with me is uncalled for. Either you mean them or you do not.”

“I mean them,” Gavin said, without moving his eyes, and barely moving his mouth.

RK nodded in acknowledgement. “So. You could have chosen to behave otherwise, and it is false to suggest you lack the capacity for that. You have ample capacity for it.” 

“Look,” Gavin said, “I’m nice to you because I like you. But you can drop all these fucking compliments. You know I’m not this great guy you’re hyping me up to be, or you wouldn’t have been horrified into calling me ‘Detective Reed’ again like you only just met me.” 

RK blinked for a moment before answering, and evidently that made Gavin think he wasn’t going to. “Yeah, I’m still butthurt about that,” he said. He rolled his eyes. “Unjustifiably. Because I’m a dick.” 

“No,” RK said. “You are not. And that is the complication. In the reading you gave, you told me I was easily hurt and slow to recover. That was your impression of me, or perhaps your observation. That I could be hurt easily and that such damage would be lasting.” 

“Sure,” Gavin said, grudgingly looking like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world. 

“So you knew that,” RK said. 

“Yeah.”

“You knew that about me, or at least believed it.”

“Yes, okay?” 

“And you believe I am real, and as such, it matters?”

That question seemed to penetrate his defensive anger slightly. “Yes,” Gavin said, very seriously. “RK--” 

“And yet you still chose to behave in a manner that hurt me.” 

Silence. Such concrete and perfect silence that it was as if the world itself had gone still. And then Gavin’s face had crumpled. 

RK felt then that he had been too harsh. Too relentless with such a vulnerable being. He felt himself about to apologize, almost opening his mouth to do so, when Gavin turned his head. He looked up into RK’s face and his eyes were wide and luminous and imploring. 

“You are absolutely fucking right,” he said. 

A wave of feeling came from that. RK had not realized how much effort all of this had taken him to say until it overwhelmed him. If he had not been broken before, he clearly was now, because for the third time since activation, he lowered his eyes. 

“I understand if perhaps my behavior warranted that decision in some fashion. You are welcome to explain.”

“No, don’t go back on it,” Gavin said. “It didn’t. Of course it didn’t. It couldn’t have. You’re right.”

The solemnity with which he said that was such that RK could not help but understand it. He understood it with a kind of force and truthfulness that was, he realized, unique to things that Gavin told him. 

He was telling RK that it wasn’t his fault for falling into the hole in the staircase. A warning wasn’t enough. A statement that he’d been warned was worse. The stair should not have been missing in the first place. 

“Hey,” Gavin said. Firmly, in the way he had of saying it that made RK have to look up at him. In the way that made it possible for RK to lift his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He meant it, RK thought. 

“Doesn’t matter my reasons,” Gavin went on. “You get that? It was just selfish shit, RK. I should never have treated you like that.”

RK did not know how to answer that. He knew he was moved, moved to the point of being overwhelmed. He knew his body felt hot, strange, and then at once he knew Gavin’s mouth looked soft and familiar and in such a way he felt fixated on it. 

He couldn’t shake that away. His hand would feel familiar if he touched it too, he knew. The roughness of it, the heat. He didn’t know why he should anticipate that. There was no reason. He clenched his hands and dropped his eyes again. 

Apparently he was doomed to keep doing that. He tried to force himself to look up before Gavin had to prompt him again, but he couldn’t do it.

“Look, it’s complicated,” Gavin said. He sighed, but it was an expansive sigh, not a distressed or weary one this time. He brushed his hand over his own face again before settling it back on the steering wheel - RK could hear that, could tell his movements from hearing alone now. 

“It’s really complicated,” he continued. “This is… new. It’s a new thing. Like, new in the world. I’ve gotta think about it.” 

It struck RK that that was true. Perhaps he had to think about it too. Perhaps he had not thought enough about anything. 

“Doesn’t change the fundamentals right now though,” Gavin said. “Which are that I fucked up. Okay? I know how it made you feel, and I fucked up. And I’m sorry.”

RK could hear him moving again. Could feel him looking at him, then turning to look out over the icy river. Then back to RK again. He was waiting for him. 

“Thank you,” RK said, finding his voice at last. It sounded ludicrous to him, prim and shallow against the expanse of everything he was feeling, but at least it was there. “It was… it was an unpleasant coda to what is likely to be my only experience of intercourse.” 

Gavin snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “Poor baby.” 

That word again. It was silly now. But still soft and warming somehow, even in jest. Perhaps familiarity was not so terrible, in this particular way. Perhaps small pieces of it could be allowed. 

He looked up just in time to see Gavin’s eyes snap wider. “Wait. Uh. Say that again?” 

“I beg your pardon?”

“Only experience. Who’s saying only?” 

RK frowned. “You said it. When you insisted that whatever my wishes, intercourse with me would not be right.” 

“That wouldn’t stop you fucking forever though. I’m not the only person you can have sex with. You could fuck another android. That whole Connor and Markus thing.” 

RK knew his expression of distaste was visible, because Gavin reacted to it. He snorted again. As if it was funny. 

“Okay,” he said, “so you’re not Android Gay or whatever you’re gonna call it. Robosexual? Or is that human on android? Never mind…” 

RK dignified him with the space to finish, but it seemed as if he wasn’t going to. 

“But there are other humans out there,” was all Gavin added. “Other, less shitty ones.” 

“Detective Reed,” RK said, “ _Gavin_. We’ve already discussed the inaccuracy, and ineffectiveness with regard to responsibility, of your referring to yourself as a shitty person.” 

Gavin snort-laughed now. He shook his head. “Still.”

“Do you disagree with my assessment?” RK asked him. 

“No, I don’t disagree with your assessment, you huge nerd. Just don’t write yourself out of sex forever, that’s all. You’re not exactly bad at it.” 

RK frowned again. He wasn’t sure why. It seemed gravitational, like something heavy was making him. 

“Hey,” Gavin said. “Hey. Woah. We don’t have to talk about this right now. It’s been a big day already.” 

His expression must be disproportionate, RK thought. He ought to alter it, for Gavin’s benefit. He would do that, he thought. Any moment. It should be a simple thing. 

“Hey,” Gavin said. RK could hear concern again. He tried to shift his face to fix it, but failed. He should speak, he thought. He should say something to let Gavin know he had answered his responsibilities. If he could just think what it should be.

Before he could, Gavin moved his hand again, until it was gripping RK’s again. “Hey,” he said. “I said the wrong thing. Don’t get hot again. You’re okay.”

RK gripped back. He let the contact soothe his artificial skin even though it was an illusion. He was being anchored, he realized. Held into the world. Like something light and delicate that could easily float away, as if a machine of his frame and purpose could ever be light and delicate. 

“Sorry if I’m being…” Gavin said. “I know it’s a big deal.”

RK nodded. It was the slightest of movements but Gavin saw it and seemed to understand exactly what was meant by it. He squeezed his hand, firmer this time. 

“Biggest deal there is, really.”

RK still hadn’t spoken, and Gavin seemed to come to a conclusion. “You know what? Actually you don’t have to be okay. You be as not okay as you want right now. We’ve got time. I’m here for you.” 

“You’re not required to de-escalate me again,” RK said. “I’m functioning at capacity.”

“I know you are. I’m just telling you.” 

“It’s not necessary at this time, I’m--”

Gavin shook his head. “C’mon, c’mon.” 

The softness of it was like a match. It set the smallest flame going, the most compact fire. It filled up RK’s body with a precise but hazy glow and then he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move properly. But that didn’t matter because Gavin was already shifting his hands, lifting his arms again, until they were wrapped around RK’s shoulders the way they had wrapped around his middle. The angle was more forgiving here, and he could move more and he did. He pressed his cheek against RK’s so that RK could feel his breath. Whispering and hot. Living. 

It breathed life into RK too, somehow, and he did move then. He shifted, slightly, pressing his nose into Gavin’s hair. 

“Yeah,” Gavin said, sliding his hand up to hold RK there. “Just take a minute. I’m here for you.” 

RK didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Instead, he put his arms around Gavin’s body in return. Gavin was here, RK realized. Really, truly here.

He was concentrated so intently on that thought that he had almost not noticed Gavin’s body stiffen. Then he did notice, and it was overwhelming. It seemed to RK as if he was trying not to react, as if he were coiling himself up like a spring to leap away and then not doing so. The muscles in his small body felt so tense that RK thought he should pull back, but before he could Gavin gripped him tighter. 

That was a cue to stop where he was, he assumed, and he didn’t move anymore. Except for very slightly with his thumb, just to adjust himself, against Gavin’s hip. 

Gavin’s body jerked. “Fuck,” he said. His voice was low enough that it sounded like a growl, like a lot of different emotions were fighting for expression. “Fuck, sorry, fuck, I’ve gotta…”

But he still had not leapt away. If anything it seemed that he was pressing closer, gripping. His fingers trembled in RK’s hair. His body was so warm, RK thought. It had been warm when he had held RK in the snow, holding him together. It was warm now too, hot, its own crackling source of heat. It was hard for RK to keep his fingers in place. He moved them very slightly again, but only that.

He heard Gavin breathe deeply, once, felt it shudder through him, felt him seem to hold it. And then, he heard him whisper something, so low it seemed he didn’t think RK could hear it. 

“Fuck,” Gavin murmmured. “I’ve gotta stop touching you.”

RK was hot in every single part of his body, staticky everywhere, and words were helpless against that. He tried, but nothing was forthcoming, and that hurt him because he wanted to say, with his whole chest, with everything in him, no. No, you don’t have to stop. Please don’t stop.

He did the only thing he could think to do instead. He tightened his hand and he leaned down and kissed Gavin on the mouth.

Gavin jumped again, but perhaps on some level he had been expecting it. He certainly did not pull away. He responded in kind, softly, cupping at the back of RK’s neck. Shifting his other hand up to RK’s face. 

When their mouths pulled apart again, he did not seem displeased. He lifted his hand up, brushed it back over RK’s hair. 

“All right,” he said. “Maybe you are malfunctioning?”

It was a bad joke, and RK shook his head. Which was a lie in a way, but it wasn’t a lie in answer to this specific context. 

Gavin didn’t smile exactly, but he did look fond. “You closed your eyes,” he said. 

“You indicated that it was weird not to,” RK told him. 

“You really did want to do that, huh?” Gavin said. “You really wanted to kiss me. You fucking weirdo.” 

His voice was still very low, but there was a laugh in it somewhere. A nervous laugh, perhaps. RK could not match it. His chest ached with seriousness and those were the only sounds he could make. 

“Yes.” 

“It’s okay,” Gavin said. “It’s the day. It’s fine. There’s no accounting for taste.”

“Please do not minimize it,” RK said. “I enjoyed it. And intercourse. I enjoyed it very much. With you. I wanted it. I wanted you.”

Gavin stared at him for a long time. Stayed close to him for a moment more, head close, hands in contact, not moving. Not moving except for his eyes, that was. His eyes travelled all over RK’s face. Examining. Investigating, RK thought. Like the detective he was. 

Then, finally, he nodded. 

He had decided something, clearly. At the nod, he lifted his hands and brought them back to the wheel, breaking contact with RK’s skin in a way that felt - that always felt, RK realized - like breaking a circuit. He smacked the wheel a couple of times, another directionless drumbeat, before looking to RK again. His eyes were so soft, so soft RK wondered how he had ever compared them to something as cold as the winter sky.

“Okay,” he said. “Me too. I wanted it too. You really wanted to? You sure?” 

RK wanted to kiss him again. He wondered if he could, what the protocol was for simply initiating such things. It had seemed appropriate a moment ago, but he was not sure if it remained so.

Instead, he simply nodded.

“I need a cigarette,” Gavin said. “And a coffee. I’m not calling the conversation off but let’s pick it up in a minute, okay? Can you look at my phone and find me a Starbucks?” 

“I can,” RK said. “Where is your phone?” 

“In my pocket. Go ahead, you can put your hand in there.” 

RK obliged, and Gavin did not react to his slipping his hand into the fabric against his thigh. RK did not react either. He overrode the phone’s lock screen, watching Gavin out of the corner of his eye.

“I need to think about it,” Gavin said. “Obviously. There’s logistics. But I’m not fucking kidding, I wanted it.” 

“I didn’t think you were kidding.” 

“I can still…” 

RK waited but there was no more. Gavin nodded again. “Okay, good,” he said. 

He started the car but did not begin driving. After a moment or two he turned his head so that he was facing RK again. He took a hand from the wheel and extended it. 

Every sensor in RK’s body sparked. It was all he could do not to electrocute him when he slapped his palm.


	24. Chapter 24

They ended up back in the vicinity of the precinct. Gavin had requested a Starbucks - requested it by name, and so that was what RK was careful to look for on his phone. However, there was the Occupied City to bypass first. There had, it appeared, at one point been a plethora of Starbucks there, but of course they were inaccessible to Gavin now. 

RK supposed they had been staffed by androids back then, service models. He wondered if they had ever taken any pleasure in serving coffee to humans. Certainly, RK had taken pleasure almost from the beginning in fetching coffee for Gavin, in easing his beleaguered human existence in some small way. He had assumed it was natural to feel like that, part of his programming. Now, he was not so sure.

This was new, Gavin had told him. New in the world. He was correct in his assessment, but it seemed that even now he did not fully appreciate the enormity of that truth. He would realize it in time; there was no way his fine human intellect could fail to do so for long.

That was why Gavin had said he needed to think. It appeared he had wasted no time in beginning to do so, as he drove in silence, bent slightly over the wheel, as if he were charging some target only he could see. RK remembered the way he had realigned himself, there in the snow outside of Kamski’s mansion. He had not looked like he was charging then.

RK was aware that he looked that way now not simply because it was habitual, because it had taken effort on his part to not look that way. Gavin appeared as if he were facing a threat because he was. The threat was the truth he had to face about himself, about RK, about what had happened between them. That truth was that this was something new in the world. Each step they took along this path carried them further from solid ground, as if they had, together and knowingly, stepped off the edge of a cliff and now there was only thin air and a long drop beneath them.

He wondered what Markus would think of it. RK supposed he would find out eventually. Of the many resolutions he had made when he had decided to go back to his original programming, RK could see now that the majority of them were neither practical nor sustainable in this new world. However, he well-recalled that he had committed to being honest. That, at least, seemed to have served him well. He had decided already, if Markus asked, RK was not going to hide the truth from him.

He briefly tried to determine if he would be as forthcoming with Connor as well, but then almost immediately dismissed it as an unnecessary consideration. Connor might find out from Markus, but RK did not think that he would ask directly. After the way RK had spoken to him the day before, he did not think Connor would be in any hurry to talk to him again, especially not on the subject of Detective Reed.

RK supposed that truth, too, would have to come out eventually. He did not want it to, could not imagine a revelation that would significantly change things one way or the other. It would only complicate what was already a hopelessly complicated situation; it would only cause pain for all of them.

And yet, RK knew with weary fatalism, Connor had to know.

They were back on the residential streets near the precinct when RK at last spoke up. “There is a Starbucks approaching on the right. I believe you are familiar with the location.”

“Huh?” Gavin said. He blinked, as if RK had awakened him or he were just coming to realize that he wasn’t alone in the car. “Oh, right. Thanks. I’m gonna stop. You don’t mind hanging out with me for a little bit, do you?”

“No,” RK said. “I do not.”

Gavin favored him with an sly glance. It only lasted a moment, but RK felt it for a long time afterwards.

He pulled into the lot next to the Starbucks. Inside, there was a short line at the counter and the majority of the tables were occupied, much like the last time RK had been here. He spotted the table where he and Gavin had sat previously, where Gavin had leaned over and read his palm. It caused a shiver to travel down RK’s spine, a curious little thrill of guilty pleasure, as he remembered the way the other humans had looked at them.

They were looking in a similar way now, RK realized. Though certainly not welcoming, it was not with the naked hostility RK sometimes could not help but register upon entering the precinct. That was odd, he thought, and contextual in a way he could not quite figure out. Perhaps it was because he was accompanied by a human, or perhaps because he was somewhere he had no business and thus, by definition, should not have been.

Some of the humans in attendance had been there before. RK did not recognize them on sight precisely, though he had logged their faces and realized now that they were in his memory recall. These humans, in particular, seemed to remember him as well. He took note of an older man in a suit who was seated one one of the stools near the window craning his neck around at an awkward angle to follow RK’s progress inside. Then he spotted a young woman furiously gripping her companion’s hand, whispering some frantic words to her that RK deliberately did not amplify his hearing to pick up.

It was unlikely that Gavin had noticed all these small details in the same way RK had, but he tensed subtly. Then he continued forward without breaking stride, aware that he was being seen, that he was sending ripples out into the world, but unwilling or unable to take steps to prevent it.

This, too, was a form of familiarity, RK realized.

Maybe, then, it was familiarity as well that Gavin gestured vaguely towards the table where they had sat the first time they had been here. It was unoccupied again, though the others around it were full.

“Grab that seat, okay?” Gavin said. “I’ll be right back.”

Without waiting for a response, he went and joined the line snaking from the counter.

RK sat down. The chair had a plush seat and enveloping arms, but a stiff hard back. It invited humans to make themselves comfortable, but never for too long. Sometime between his first visit here and his current one, a fleece blanket with a pattern of red and green holly leaves had been tossed over the back of the chair.

Christmas, RK thought vaguely, reaching down to covertly run his fingers over the blanket’s fluffy edge. It made him think of the fourth cat, Cabbage, and his soft hesitant affections.

He was still thinking about that when a human woman’s voice interrupted him. “Um… hi? Excuse me?”

RK looked up. Though he was confident his expression was politely neutral, a perfect unthreatening android mask, the woman blushed. Pink, and all the way to her ears. RK estimated her as being close to Tina Chen’s age. She was wearing glasses and her hair was arranged in a series of small braids that were in turn piled atop her head in a messy bun.

“May I help you?” RK said.

“Hi,” the woman said again. “I would never just come up to somebody like this. But I saw you on Twitter.” She laughed, nervous. “I was just wondering if I could get a picture with you?”

RK was aware that his lips had compressed into a frown. He glanced toward Gavin, who was still in line, but had noticed RK speaking to the woman and seemed on the verge of returning to see what the problem was. As strange as the encounter might be, RK could tell the woman was not a threat, and he didn’t want Gavin to worry. To demonstrate as much to him, he turned back to the woman and said, “I’m afraid I am unclear how you came to be aware of me. On a social networking site?”

“Twitter,” the woman confirmed. “You don’t even know?”

She lowered her face into her hands in a sudden fit of embarrassment. “It’s just all these people talking about how there’s an android back in the city. There are, like… creep-shots. I think those are so gross, so I decided to just come over and ask you if it was okay. I can’t believe you didn’t know…”

RK was careful not to let his frown deepen. He had known that his presence in the human city was unusual, but he had not thought it would become a source of gossip. Immediately, as soon as he realized that, he also realized how naive he had been. Of course, human curiosity was one of the most natural things that there was.

And he was an ambassador, RK reminded himself. It was his job to respond with openness, and a lack of suspicion.

“I am model RK900, serial number 313-248-317-87,” he said by way of introduction. “I have been appointed by the government of the Android Occupied City to serve as a liaison to the Detroit Police Department--”

The woman muttered something under her breath, so quietly that RK had to replay it in order to understand the words.

“They’re calling you Ridiculously Photogenic Android,” she had said.

That brought RK up short. He thought, perhaps, he might be blushing a little - almost imperceptibly - himself. “Pardon me?”

“That’s just the hashtag,” the woman said. “It’s really stupid. Sorry, I should--”

She made a move to leave, but RK stopped her. “I will take a photograph with you, miss.”

“Oh…” the woman said. She blinked, surprised. “Thank you!”

Then, without warning, she moved around to RK’s side, almost pressed up against him. She thrust her phone out in front of them and snapped a series of selfies, so quick that RK did not even have time to process what expression he would be making. When she was finished, she brought the phone back, and flipped through the pictures she had taken.

“You are a ridiculously photogenic android,” she said, with another nervous laugh.

“My name is RK,” he said abruptly.

The woman looked up at him with a startled, wide-eyed expression that reminded RK momentarily of Gavin. “Talia,” she told him. She thrust out her hand, and RK took it. It was soft and warm in his own. Human.

RK shook her hand briefly, then she scurried back to her table where another human woman and a man were waiting for her. They were laughing, RK noticed, teasing her. Passing the phone around so they could look at the photos she had taken.

A moment later, Gavin returned. He was carrying two cups of steaming coffee, which RK wanted to inquire about but didn’t get a chance.

“What was that all about?” Gavin said. He was eyeing the woman and her companions, who were now engaged in their own conversation and not paying attention.

“The young lady wanted a photo,” RK said.

“What for?”

“To upload to Twitter, I presume,” RK replied. “It appears my presence in the city has been noticed.”

“Uh, yeah, you think? Whatever. You wanna become a dank meme, that’s your problem.”

Gavin looked away from the table of humans. When his gaze fell on RK, it abruptly softened. He thrust one of the cups of coffee in his direction. “Here.”

“You know I cannot consume this,” RK said. He took the offered cup. It was full of a murky orange soup that smelled of sweet-spicy flavored syrup. A raft of whipped cream was floating on top, flecked with dots of powdered cinnamon.

“I’ll drink yours later,” Gavin said. “I just thought, it’s nice to have something to hold onto.”

He noticed RK looking down into the cloudy mixture as if he were analyzing its chemical components, which indeed he was.

“Three weeks old and you already think you’re too cool for pumpkin spice?” Gavin said. “Pumpkin spice is good. Some people are just too cowardly to admit it.”

He took a seat at the table across from RK, then abruptly pulled his chair around so it was close to RK’s side. When he rested his elbow on the armrest, it rubbed against RK’s in a way that was not purely accidental.

“I’d rather watch people,” Gavin said, giving RK a conspiratorial look. Their elbows brushed against each other again, accidentally on purpose. “You know, in case your fanclub decides to go full k-pop.”

He took a drink of the coffee, then settled back, folding both hands around the steaming cup. RK mimicked the gesture, and he felt the heat throbbing up through the cardboard, penetrating pleasantly. He had been cold earlier - a sensation that could only be described as cold, as impossible as that should have been for him - but he did not any longer. That was a relief.

“Okay,” Gavin said abruptly. “Real talk. I have to tell you this.”

He seemed edgy again, nervous, and RK suspected he was about to produce another misgiving about what had transpired between them. It seemed he was determined to talk himself out of further intercourse, and RK accepted that he could not change his mind on that account. Gavin would make his own choices, and he was intelligent enough to come up with excuses to convince himself of the rightness of any wrong path he might set himself upon.

“You may tell me anything, of course,” RK said. His voice was steady, and he did not have to force it to be that way. In spite of what he was sure was coming, he felt calm like this.

“When you first walked into the precinct, and you said my name, and I turned around and looked at you… You remember this, right?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“You wanna know what the first thing I thought was?” Gavin said. “Even before I got all head-fucked cuz you look like Connor. Even before it really clicked for me that you were an android. I looked right at you and I thought, ‘Holy shit, this is the hottest guy I’ve ever seen.’ And you were asking for me, for some reason. I honestly could not believe it was happening.”

RK’s whole body filled with static. It was not unpleasant the way it had been before. It was simply overwhelming, in his skin, for a split second, until it settled into a hot feeling in his chest and cheeks. He focused on what Gavin had said, and found it was not merely information as it had been before either. Before, Gavin had opened his shirt and been pleased by what he found, and RK had understood that as accurate without inflection. Now, there was nothing but inflection. 

He struggled to know what to say in the face of it. “I recognized you as my contact immediately,” he volunteered. “Your voice was very loud and I noticed I did not have to amplify my hearing.” 

Gavin snorted into his drink. “Wow, RK, your game…” 

It had been the wrong response, obviously. But it did not feel bad. It did not feel like a mistake to be wrong, the way Gavin looked at him. 

“Your game is nonexistent,” Gavin said, fondly. “Long day, huh?” 

“I’m not sure I understand your meaning.” 

“Never mind,” Gavin said. His smile had not faded. “Another time. I just wanted to tell you. Just in case you thought that was an impulse decision. You know. That night.” 

He did not need to clarify which night he meant. But he went on regardless. “Well, it kind of was. But not from nowhere. I’d thought about it. A lot. So, you know. You deserve to know you’re hot.”

Ridiculously photogenic, RK thought. He nodded. He still had absolutely no idea what to say, and he still felt hot everywhere, though not in the way that Gavin meant. His beverage-warmed hands by contrast now felt almost cool. 

“Thank you,” he tried. 

“You know something else?” Gavin asked him, shifting his gaze back to the room. His mouth had flickered at RK’s response. It had pleased him. “I was wrong about that, getting head-fucked then. You don’t look that much like Connor.” 

“That seems unlikely,” RK said. “I am aware there are demonstrable visual similarities between our models.” 

“Yeah, similarities,” Gavin said. “Sure. But you look different. You move different. And… I mean I don’t totally remember, I don’t have a computer memory like you do, but… your eyes. They’re a different color. Aren’t they?” 

Gavin had noticed his eyes. He had thought about the color of them the same way RK had thought about his. RK’s chest now felt as if it was on fire. It must show on his face, he thought. He hoped Talia was as good as her word regarding taking photographs without express permission, because he did not think he would like whatever face he was making broadcast to Twitter. 

Curious, too. It had pleased Gavin that RK had noticed the resemblance between he and his sister. Now, it had, RK had to admit, pleased RK to hear that as well as resemblance, he and Connor had differences. What a curious distinction between he and Gavin. What an important one.

“You look related,” Gavin concluded, even though, once again, he could not read RK’s mind. “You don’t look the same. Nobody paying attention could confuse you.” 

“Yes,” RK said. It did not sound as if he was trembling. “Our eyes are a different color.” 

“Yours are blue,” Gavin said. 

“Yes.” 

He felt Gavin’s elbow against his again. Pressing into him with a warmth and comfort he could not quantify. He looked down at his beverage. He was sure he could try tasting it. Surely it would be no different to taking a forensic sample. It struck him as absurd to do, but there was no real reason for that. If his forensic senses could help him analyze the world, then why shouldn’t they? 

He lifted the cup and extended his tongue. The heat in his body seemed to complicate things for a moment, but then the analysis was clear. The chemical components of the whipped cream were instantly apparent to him. He saw the formulae and he knew how to say it like a human would: I can taste cinnamon. I can taste nutmeg. He could also taste chemical stabilizers and foaming agents, but he thought a human would probably not say that. 

Gavin was watching him curiously. “You like that?” 

RK nodded. 

“Told you. It’s good. People just… invent reasons to have a prejudice.”

The way he said it, it sounded as if it were not only about the drink. RK was not sure how to draw the rest out of it. He thought if Gavin wanted him too, he would probably volunteer that. For a moment or two, they sat in silence. 

“Anyway,” Gavin said. “Thanks for hanging out.” 

“It’s my pleasure.”

“I just remembered I let Tina have my pack.” 

“We will purchase you some more cigarettes,” RK said. Of course it occurred to him to caution Gavin against smoking, but he did not bother.

“It’s okay. I’ve got some in my freezer at home.” 

“I would be pleased to return there, subsequently,” RK said, and then, “if you are still offering.” 

Gavin nodded. “I get it. I mean, I don’t get it, but I’m thinking about it. That was a hell of a hit of information. I get wanting to think it through yourself before you have to hash it all out for your brother and his boyfriend.” 

“He’s not…” RK started to say, but then thought better of it. It didn’t matter. Brother was close enough. “I’m still not sure how he will process the news,” he admitted. “And…” 

“And?” 

“I’m also not sure he particularly wishes to speak with me, at present.” 

Gavin made a performative wince. “What’s he done now?” 

“The fault is not with him,” RK said. 

He saw Gavin hear that with surprise, and he understood. This was not how they usually talked about Connor. Still, Gavin did not correct or interrupt him. He listened. He waited. 

“I…” RK said. “We argued and… I will admit he shared some information with me that I did not receive very graciously.” 

Gavin’s voice, and also his posture, had become very quiet. “I think I can guess what about.” 

He meant himself, RK understood. And there was truth to that but it was not the whole truth. He searched for what to say, to explain, because that was not the part that had troubled him. He did not think he could explain what had troubled him exactly, not without revealing what Connor had told him about Lieutenant Anderson, and he did not think he should do that. He could understand, perhaps instinctively now, that Connor would not like that disclosure to be freely shared. 

“He has suggested that I should ask you directly about your history with him, yes. But I spoke to him…” 

Gavin did not prompt him this time either. But he was looking at RK with full attention, following his eyes. There was nervousness in it, but not only that. Mostly what there was was focus. Sole focus. 

Care, RK thought. He was looking at RK and listening to RK with great and intentional care. 

“I spoke to him unkindly and I regret it,” RK said, finally. 

“He probably had it coming.” 

RK wanted to agree, but he knew he could not. “Not this time.”

“The thing about your siblings,” Gavin said, in the same quiet voice he’d used a moment ago, “is that they’ll forgive you. Not always, and probably too often, but it’s family, you know? You want to make it work. Family’s all you’ve got.” 

RK nodded, though he was not quite sure why he was nodding. He didn’t think he understood, wholly. Though some part of him did understand, and was responding. 

“Connor’ll talk to you about this, RK. He’ll want to know. He’s your brother.” 

“I hope so,” RK said, and it felt a bizarre thing to say, considering all the factual incorrectness of it. Not to mention what he usually said, usually felt, about Connor. 

“Robot associate?”

“Brother is fine.” 

“Sorry, I just realized I keep doing that. Just automatically putting it in human terms. Maybe human terms don’t apply.” 

“I think,” RK said, “that human terms are adequate for this situation.” 

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know about that,” Gavin added. “Anything you ask me. I can’t promise you’ll like it but I promise I’ll always be straight with you. No matter what.” 

“You’ve told me that before. And I believe it..” 

“Any time, okay?” 

“I appreciate that.” 

All of a sudden, so abruptly in the stillness they had somehow created, Gavin began to laugh. He did not laugh loudly - some awareness of being in a public space tempered that - but he did laugh emphatically. His teeth were clenched in an attempt to keep the sound in, his shoulders hunched around his attempt to keep his beverage from spilling.

He seemed to notice RK’s confused expression. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s the dumbest fucking joke. I’m literally fifteen, apparently.”

That did nothing to alleviate the confusion. “Excuse me?” 

“I’ll always be straight with you in terms of _information_.” 

There was another of those curious zaps at RK’s temple. He understood this. Not immediately, but he was capable. He assessed tone, previous information, temperament, and he knew exactly how he should respond.

“Yes,” he said, inflecting his voice with precise measures of false disapproval and the lightness to show it was false. “That joke was unworthy of your intellect.” 

The look that earned him was delightful. He could not think of another word to explain it. Gavin’s eyes were sparkling and he looked happy in a way RK had neither seen before nor imagined. 

“Fuck you,” Gavin said.

RK did not answer. Instead, he raised a single eyebrow in Gavin’s direction and watched the impact of it ripple over his face. He saw it in Gavin’s cheeks first, suddenly two spots of pink. Then in his mouth. It popped open as if in awe.

RK was not sure what magical thing had been uncovered in this moment, but he knew it was precious. He felt that with his chest just as he had felt everything else. He also felt it with the rest of his body. In the lower parts of it. 

Gavin shuffled in his chair. It almost seemed like he was trying to move closer. 

“Guess I was wrong about your game,” he said, his voice very low. 

RK shifted himself slightly too, so that there could be no doubt their arms were touching. He had the impulse to whisper. He also had the impulse to begin kissing Gavin on the side of his face, on his active mouth, on his neck. Then he remembered where they were and what they had discussed. And that there was an audience. 

Without warning it slammed into him again. The weight of everything he’d learned and what it meant, here, now in what was happening. If he was hot according to Gavin, or Ridiculously Photogenic to the humans of Twitter, it did not belong to him. All he could ever be was a body a human wanted. 

The world dropped away from him. His vision narrowed. 

Gavin saw it. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, what happened?” 

The way Gavin said ‘hey’. Firm and soft at the same time. It anchored RK in space just long enough that he was able to answer. 

“It’s nothing. It’s…” 

“It’s okay,” Gavin said, when RK couldn’t finish. “It’s a lot. You’ve had a lot today.” 

“Scarcely enough to warrant such a reaction,” RK said, with considerably more stability than he felt. “More evidence that you were correct. By design or by nature, I am slow to recover.” 

“Yeah, I don’t think this counts as slow, baby. You take your time.” 

RK felt himself nodding. He had closed his eyes but he wanted to open them. He was an ambassador. He did not want a human spectator to observe something wrong. 

Then he realized. Gavin had, once again, not noticed that he had said ‘baby’. And this time, RK had almost let it pass without registering it as unusual. How odd, how absolutely bizarre. That was sufficient to force his eyes open. 

Gavin’s expression was one of concern, but he smiled. Reassuringly, RK thought. 

“Maybe I missed some stuff,” he said. 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“On your palm. Wanna see what else it says?” 

RK remembered, with absolute clarity, that Gavin had concluded his last palm reading session by saying “that’s all I remember how to do.” There was nothing else for him to find. But this was a game. An algorithm. A ceremonial rite performed to close a chasm. Keeping one hand on his coffee, RK put out the other.

He put it palm up on the table in front of them and Gavin instantly reacted. His own beverage went onto the table too and he leaned forward. He brought out a single finger and drew it down the center of RK’s palm. “Hmm yeah,” he said. “I see now. I really wasn’t paying attention before. This one means you can recover from anything, because of your inherent unique personality.” 

In spite of himself, in spite of _everything_ , a sharp gust of air issued through RK’s closed teeth and he recognized at once for what it was. It was Gavin’s kind of accidental almost-laugh, and he had done it himself because Gavin had drawn it out of him. 

“You like that, huh?” Gavin said. “This one is about--” 

Gavin did not trail off. He stopped, abruptly, and he pulled his whole body back right away. RK was startled enough that he almost acted to protect him, as if his mechanical instincts anticipated danger. But there was no danger here, at least nothing obvious. The way Gavin stared, blinking at the room full of people, RK suspected there may be a danger he couldn’t see. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly.

Gavin shook his head. “You’re fine. I just don’t want to get us trending.” 

On Twitter, he meant. “I understand.” 

“Sorry. I know--” 

“There is no need to apologize.” 

“Hey, put your hand out again?” 

RK obliged, despite confusion. He could not be tired, he knew, but he supposed it was possible to be weary in his own way, and he didn’t want to argue. He wanted to trust. 

Gavin’s finger came forth again but the touch was brief. At the blue scar at RK’s wrist and then gone again. 

“What’s going on there?” he said. Cautiously. 

It was a strange caution. RK recognized some of it as Gavin’s professional habit, but he heard something else in it too. Something he could not quite identify. It had been in Bree’s tone, at Jericho, when she had first seen his back. 

“I beg your pardon?” 

Gavin gave RK a narrow-eyed look. It seemed he was well aware RK was obfuscating. It also seemed he knew the look would be a sufficient prompt. 

“I broke my phone,” RK said, inadequately. 

“What, with your hand?” 

“Yes.” 

“Just kinda by accident, or…?” 

“I understand your concern,” RK said. “But please be assured, I am capable of calibrating my strength and I am in command of those faculties.” 

“Yeah, that’s about the furthest thing from my concern here, RK. Tell me what happened when you broke your phone.” 

He asked that question like a detective, and RK did not want to answer it. But he had resolved to be honest. As honest as Gavin had promised to be. 

“It was after our conversation while you were with Mr. Carpenter.” 

Gavin’s eyes widened. “Yeah?” 

RK instantly regretted his commitment to the truth. He thought perhaps self-destruction was preferable to what he was about to admit. But he also could not allow Gavin to continue to worry for him unnecessarily, so he forged on. 

“It is your prerogative to engage in intercourse with partners of your own choosing,” he clarified. “It is neither my place nor my right to object to that. However, I was subject to an irrational impulse.” 

Gavin’s hand was over his mouth. It seemed something was dawning on him and amusement filtered into his eyes. That was a relief, at least. Though not enough of a relief to ease any embarrassment. However, RK was done with lowering his head. He stared straight and held himself steady. 

There was amusement in Gavin’s tone too, but he moderated it carefully. RK was reminded of Markus, in the car, and the way he had spoken to Connor. 

“Were you jealous?” he said, over his hand. 

RK nodded. The shame that came with it made it hard to move, but he did so. 

Gavin’s reaction was a surprise. “Wow,” he said. “I did not expect that to work.” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“If I thought it would work I probably wouldn’t have done it. Does it hurt? Shit.” 

“Androids cannot feel pain,” RK said. “I’m sorry, please clarify?” 

“Oh god, I’m the absolute fucking worst. I’m so sorry.” 

By now, his elbow was on the table. His head was in his palm and was shaking it in dismay, with closed eyes and wearing a curious smile, and RK was no closer to understanding. 

“You are not the worst,” RK said. “Will you explain?” 

“I was trying to make you jealous,” Gavin said. “I didn’t sleep with Chet, the real story is a lot sadder than that, believe me, but I was being a dick on the phone about it because…” 

RK wondered if Gavin expected him to prompt him. He did not. He would not have known how to. 

Then Gavin focused on his face. Sharp, clear, gentle. “Because I’m really into you.” 

For a long moment, RK did not react, not even to flush, though surely he would do that in good time. As it was, for the moment, he was incapable of any response to Gavin’s soft confession at all. He reverted to analysis.

“You are not into Mr. Carpenter?”

Gavin made a soft little laugh, as if he were incapable of stopping himself. “Chet’s nice. Exactly the kind of nice guy who would get sick of my shit right around the time he’s trying to make breakfast the next morning. But no, I’m not into him.”

RK wondered if he himself was somehow _not_ nice by comparison. He could well imagine himself trying to make Gavin breakfast one morning, but he could also imagine the gesture being rebuffed. As illogical as it may have been, as detrimental to the finely-tuned organic mechanisms of his body, Gavin did not eat breakfast. 

RK knew that with confidence, and so he considered what else he knew. “You behaved as you did because having me angry or irritated with you was preferable to imagining that I did not feel anything towards you at all. Am I correct in my interpretation?”

“Jeez, RK,” Gavin said. “It’s not like it was my finest moment. But sure, it was something like that.”

“I am not rebuking you,” RK assured him. “I am merely confirming what I suspected. My own motivations were similar, when I reverted to calling you Detective Reed.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gavin blinked, startled, then his lips curled into a smile that RK was beginning to suspect signified arousal. “You wanted me to get all worked up?”

“I was presumptuous to think it would be successful.”

“Don’t take it too hard. I know a thing or two about grand passive-aggressive gestures. It figures, though. You were manufactured in the Midwest…”

RK was not entirely sure he understood the reference, but it made him feel good all the same. He looked down into his coffee; the whipped cream had melted by now, into a loose ring of white fractals, dissipating into the orange liquid.

“You gonna have any more?” Gavin asked.

RK shook his head and offered the cup to Gavin, who drained the last dregs of his own coffee before taking it. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

Thoughtfully, he took a sip. “Hey, listen, I’ll take you back to my place, just like I promised, but it’s still pretty early. I wanna go in and file our report about what happened at Kamski’s. Won’t take more than an hour or two.

RK felt a strange, urgent emotion fill him at that. He moved to brace himself against it, before he realized it for what it was: relief.

“I was thinking the same thing, in fact. I will accompany you to the precinct.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” RK replied. He may have been programmed with smalltalk, but the thought of spending the next hour or two with Gavin’s sister was intimidating. No doubt he would be expected to converse for all that time, a notion which filled him with abrupt and spurious dread.

“Look,” Gavin said, “there’s no reason for you to push yourself on my account. I’m not loving the thought of trying to sort through that mess, but I gotta give the Captain something. Believe me, he’s not exactly thrilled we’re on this case. It’s a little too big and weird. Too many powerful people. And then, you’re involved too. He doesn’t want to be bothered.”

“He told you this?” RK asked. 

“He doesn’t have to. I generally figure stuff like that out when I put in for another promotion I’m never going to get.” All at once, a new thought seemed to occur to him and Gavin quickly added, “You don’t have to worry, though. I’m not going to tell him everything that happened out there.”

Gavin meant that he would omit details from the official record. Just as Lieutenant Anderson had done for Connor. RK remembered the disdain he had felt upon realizing that, and he was embarrassed by it. Still, Gavin was not like Lieutenant Anderson.

“There is no need to obfuscate the truth on my account,” RK said.

“Uh, like hell there isn’t.”

RK looked away. He wanted a moment to process the odd tone in which Gavin had spoken, as it did not seem to match the content of what he had said. However, the instant he took his eyes off him, RK once more felt Gavin’s elbow nestling comfortably against his own.

“I would like to accompany you,” he said. “Regardless of where you are going.”


End file.
